


Enigma

by sxrebonds



Series: Aurora Malandra's Game of Secrets [1]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Drinking, F/M, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Multi, Romance, Season/Series 01, Season/Series 02, Sexual Content, Swearing, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:49:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 64,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22102093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sxrebonds/pseuds/sxrebonds
Summary: 𝐀𝐔𝐑𝐎𝐑𝐀 𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐑𝐀 liked to remain a mystery. It's what kept her safe; sane. The only thing that kept her in the shadows, along with the whisperings of her little birds feeding her their secrets.The war was her escape, and Small Heath was her safe haven, as ironic as it might sound. But with games and enigmas being her armour, one certain crime boss can't stop his mind from working over time to unravel her mysteries to find the truth underneath.
Relationships: Arthur Shelby/Linda Shelby, Esme Shelby/John Shelby, Tommy Shelby/Original Character(s), Tommy Shelby/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Aurora Malandra's Game of Secrets [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1590859
Comments: 60
Kudos: 246





	1. Blonde Haired Mystery

**Author's Note:**

> This is not my first fic I've ever written but it is on this site but if you want to see any of my other works, check me out on wattpad at @sxrebonds

The war. It was apparently only four years of everyone's lives, and after that fateful night that it eventually came to a close, it would said to be never looked back on again. They should have known that that would never have been the case.

With men waking up their wives and children screaming bloody murder in the dead of night as the flashes of corpses and fallen comrades flood their systems. And widows that could be heard wailing over the gravestones of their lost lovers around every corner. The war for most was certainly not over.

Especially for those ghastly families who could be seen operating in the shadows, whilst they battle one another for their own brutal power and glory.

Yet, while others dealt with misery and despair, there happened to be one phoenix who was able to rise from the ashes and escape in the clouds of fog away from a troubling past to a hopefully brighter future. Because with the resurgence of guts and gore, Aurora Malandra was able to get away from the steely grips of her London home and settle in the inconspicuous town of Small Heath, Birmingham, along with all the familiar rowdiness that falls within its borders.

The blonde haired beauty waltzed down the streets of her home of three years with an elegance and poise that was hard to be overlooked in the depressing gleam of the darkened cobbled streets. The stragglers on the walkways never failing to follow her effortless movements with an entrapping awe that leaves them incapacitated until she finally falls out of their line of sight and around the corner. In simple terms, it was a mystery to them all as to why a girl like that ever chose to land in a place like theirs.

But that is exactly how she liked it. Aurora feeds off of being an enigma, being a missing piece of the puzzle that no one can seem to find. It causes a rush in her veins as she watches the whirling confusion in their eyes only increase with every word that passes between her plush lips. Though behind all the excitement, it was by far the reason she had convinced herself as to why she was still alive and no longer in their grasps.

However, Aurora prided herself on always being prepared. So with a network of her little birds hovering over every nook and cranny of the crime invested town, there wasn't a single thing that could come to pass without her knowledge. She knew every single breath someone takes, and every last one. Developed and perfected while the men were fighting the enemies overseas.

So with all the whispers and all the rumors flying past her ears from the mouths of her hidden informants, she managed to catch the eye of the infamous women laying across the beaten path from where she slept. Polly Gray. A women who could strike fear into the hearts of many with one withering look, while also bringing love and embrace to a girl who knew only fear and pain.

Throughout these brutal times where the women were left to fend for themselves, Aurora found herself in the hearts of the two Shelbys, resulting in an iron-clad bond being strengthened between the three of them. While she provided them with all the crumbs of information left at her feet, the matriarch put it to good use in the day to day routine of running the underground business keeping them all afloat. It was a serene distraction for them all.

Then it changed. 

With a year coming to pass since the boys had been home from their war, time was becoming Aurora's enemy. Each second that passed only meant one more moment that they had been searching. And sooner or later she knew they would find their prize, but until then, Aurora Malandra planned to live her life with a liberty and freedom that tasted so pure on the tip of her tongue. Revelling in the chaos and new family around her; before it was too late.  
  
  


~ ~ ~   
  
  


The humble accommodation sitting comfortably on the corner of Watery Lane with the red painted door and brass handle, was the home of the mystery women that was on the minds of so many men. Her beauty printing a lasting mark on their brains that proved immovable to shake, even when they would stare into the eyes of the women they were willed to love. She was both a blessing and a curse, equivalent to the sirens beckoning the sailors to the rocky cliffs in a swift but glorious death.

There, Aurora Malandra lounged in her grand fabric chair with a newspaper crinkling in one hand and a crystal glass of a dark brooding whiskey in the other. A fire roaring in front of her causing a shimmering orange hue over her golden waves that were so elegantly positioned flowing over her shoulder. Her gentle gaze glancing over the headlines with a selective tendency, as she searches for not what is there but for the much more integral strategy of what is not. A game of an everlasting chess match never being forgotten or underestimated.

Yet, with the large brash bang of her front door breaking her tranquil stupor, Aurora releases a heavy sigh, not even needing to look up from her literature to know who the angered pacing belongs to. "Tea?" She asks quizzically, a tone of false innocence ringing through as she expects the ultimate thrashing she was going to be imposed with due to her tight lips over a certain developing issue.

"Whiskey." Polly bluntly responds, marching over to the raised extended arm Aurora wordlessly motioned outwards and snatching the glass from her grasp, finishing it's contents in one strong gulp of the burning liquid. "You didn't warn me." She seethed, staring down at the girl from her heightened advantage, the alcohol doing very little to quell the rising fever she was beginning to feel at the new problems attacking her at all sides.

"I'm assuming you're talking about the Chief Inspector." She dryly responds, finally ripping her eyes away from the black and white pages and up to her close friend. The news of their new visitor being of her new pressing issues she was having to deal with at the moment, given the man seemed to be a web of secrets and deception that had her itching with excitement for the truth. 

However, with one look to Polly's screwed up features, Aurora could well tell that she wasn't as intrigued by the mysteries that the new copper had to spill. Only that of the ripple effects it was going to implode upon the family business. And the small fact that she had no prior warning from the woman who always seemed to know the workings of this town before the actions are even manifested. "Well, what else would I be talking about?" She snapped back, frustrated to believe that the worst was yet to come.

"Speak to you nephew. You'll learn soon after." Aurora replied with a small shrug, her eyes drifting back down to the paper still lying in her lap with that annoying level of nonchalance that never helped aide Polly's bad moods.

Ripping the paper out of her hands in one swift movement and tossing it into the fire behind her, Polly stubborn gaze continued boring down on her from above. "And why not just you tell me now?" She demanded, a huff soon after leaving Aurora's lips as she once again brought her gaze back to Polly with a less than amused look now plastering her otherwise delicate face. 

"Because I don't want to have to deal with your anger afterwards." Aurora jested sarcastically, clearly her methods of avoiding a confrontation such as the one she was dealing with becoming quite futile despite her best methods. As one thing that the entire town of Birmingham could wholeheartedly agree on, including that of the Peaky Blinders, was that no one aimed to be on the suffering end of Polly Gray's grievances.

Though, when the information came to her just this morning of the entire scandal of what the actions of a few drunken thieves under the commision of Thomas Shelby had caused, she knew that she was definitely not going to want to be the one to break that news to his Aunt. However with the underlying hint of knowledge hidden in Polly's eyes, it was clear that the woman was already clued in on the missing piece of the mystery that Thomas Shelby held the answers for. 

So at the mention of her intended humored words, Polly quickly simmered down off of her misplaced rant and fell back into the chair conveniently placed behind her feet. "You know speaking to you sometimes is more exhausting than childbirth." She humored back, her eyes trained to the ceiling at the thoughts of what her overly clever nephew had dragged them into now.

"I take that as a compliment." A matching smirk and mischievous glint shining in her ice cold irises. 

A moment of comforting silence shrouds the duo, the only sounds emitting from the cracking of the wood being engulfed by the merciless flames taking them whole. "Are we in real danger?" Polly voices, a layer of rare vulnerability being showed in the woman as she meets her gaze with a worrying waver. 

"I may hold a lot of information Pol, but I can't see the future." She replies softly, wishing that she could be the omniscient being that she so needed her to be, but God does not gift such certainties in this life. "I thought you Gypsies were the ones who could do that." Aurora added in an attempted jab at getting their thoughts away from such uncontrollable wishes.

It seemed that jokes were not going to save their restlessness this time, as Polly leans forward in her chair with an urgency to take the hand of the girl that wound up stealing a place in her broken heart. "I'm going to need your help again." She admits, her grip becoming more fierce with each obnoxious tick of the clock working heavily in the corner of the room.

"And I'll be here for whenever you do." Returning the grip back with a reassuring squeeze to leave them both with the comfort of each others protection and presence. "But, how will your Tommy take to that? I hear he can be rather paranoid of outside help." She questions, her knowledge of the silently stoic crime boss relying solely on the whispers of outside sources given the surprising notion of never having been graced with the presence of any of the Shelby boys. Except dear Finn of course.

"Only the kind he doesn't understand." Polly notions, both women leaning back in their chairs while they simultaneously reach for the pack of smokes on their persons and engite the lighters onto the end of their tobacco sticks.

Blowing out a cloud of enveloping smoke, Aurora meets Polly's gaze with a reprised humor. "I'm told he understands most things."

"I'm sure he won't understand you." She bits back with a grin, finding enjoyment to the inevitable confusion and irritation that will be bound to affect her Thomas upon him meeting the enigma of a girl sitting before her.

A mirroring grin now reflecting on Aurora's face, as she mutters her next words, "Well, we all have our talents."  
  
  


~ ~ ~  
  
  


Resting in the dark shadows encasing the empty Church grounds, Polly sat clinging to her rosary beads with her eyes shut solemnly in wait for her nephew to arrive and ultimately cloud her prayers with more worrisome pleas of safety over the eventual bomb he was going to drop on them. Without much time wasted, Thomas Shelby quickly slid into the pew directly behind his Aunt, a wish for whatever this was about to be to already be over and done with. 

"I have ten minutes. What do you want?" He gruffly demanded, his rushed words coming hand in hand with his pressing and equally rushed actions.

Unlike her dear nephew, Polly remained in a slow and calming state, not quite finished with her silent prayer and knowing that the longer she prolonged the time-wasting pause of nothingness, it would surely drive him up the walls. After a sufficient amount, Polly slowly opened her eyes and turned to face Tommy with that cold sternness that had many running for the hills. "An explanation. I've always been able to tell when you're hiding something. It only confirmed it when I had a word with my friend and she told me as much."

"What friend?" He questioned, his eyes boring into hers with a dangerous glint, as expected not taking too kindly to the thought of someone knowing his intimate details. Not to mention, that overprotective fire burning inside of him at the unknown connection Aunt Polly has to someone outside the family that apparently has her divulging secrets. 

"I'll get to that later." She dismissed with a wave of her hand, not wanting to stray too far away from the real issue he was about to explain. "People round here talk. Some of them work at the BSA. I've been talking to wives of factory hands, detectives have been asking questions in the proofing shops. Nothing happens in that factory without you knowing about it. Speak. God and Aunt Polly are listening."

Tommy couldn't stand looking into Polly's intense demanding gaze, especially given the story he was about to unfold, so instead, with his arms stretched over the pew in front of him and his eyes trained on the floor, Tommy began unwinding. "It was meant to be routine. I had a buyer in London for some motorcycles. I asked my men to steal me four bikes with petrol engines. I'm guessing my men were drunk. There's a still inside the factory that makes tram line gin. They picked up the wrong fucking crate.

The boys dropped it to Charlie Strong's yard as agreed. They must've taken it from the proofing bay instead of the export bay. Inside we found 25 Lewis machine guns, 10,00 rounds of ammunition, 50 semi-automatic rifles, 200 pistols with shells. All bound for Libya. Sitting right there in Charlie Strong's yard." 

"Tell me you threw them in the Cut." Polly argued, a deep pool of fear and regret washing over her in waves for the predictable reckless answer she knew was going to slip out of his mouth that would damn them all to hell.

At the shake of his head, Polly felt like the God's above were laughing at her for giving her this child in her lap, a subtle punishment for past sins. "We put them in the Stables out of the rain. The guns hadn't been greased yet." He rationalised, purely only adding more fuel to the remerging rage that she had so easily oppressed earlier. 

Not holding back any longer, Polly released her frustrations with the repeated beating of a scolding mother punishing her child over the top of Thomas' head, in what could have been an otherwise humorous display if it weren't for the death threat hanging over their heads. "God, she was right to leave you to tell me. It could strangle you right here in this Church." Polly ranted, not caring that it brought back that concern and confusion within Tommy at the mention of the mystery girl once again.

"Who's _she_ , Polly? Eh?" Thomas demanded, not willing to have any more vague answers when it came to a girl who was apparently holding all his worst crimes. 

"Someone you're going to need if we want to deal with this new copper." Polly fired back, not showing any indifference or contest when it came to this matter, especially now she knew the level of shit that Thomas has shoveled onto their laps.

"What does she know?"

"Everything. There isn't a single thing that happens in this town that she doesn't know about. Including these guns." Her words almost showing pride in the girls work, the very thought of what she had achieved still remaining to impress the women who had witnessed a many great powerful men over her life fail to do the same.

"How?" He asked next, this woman in the dark already providing him with too many questions that he didn't know the answers to.

"She's smart, she's got informants running about round every corner. Told me she likes to call them her _little birds_." She explained in all the detail that she could, well aware that it most definitely was not a lot and she was not needed to be told that. But, Polly had long given up on trying to knock through the thick concrete walls blocking her entry to the past life Aurora had lived before she turned up on her doorstep. 

Despite the continued theme of mystery clouding the girl's very identity, Tommy had to admit to himself that a well connected ally with spies hidden throughout the city was exactly the secret weapon he needed for the expansion formulating in his calculating brain. "Do you trust her?"

"She's like kin to me. So if you're going to drag her into this fight, you better keep her safe. Do you hear me?" Her strong gaze unwavering as she meets his eyes, not wanting to entertain the thought of potentially losing another girl who she has chosen to love.

"All right Pol, I hear you. What's her name?" Tommy muttered with a roll of his eyes, easily growing annoyed at Polly's dramatics.

"Aurora." She responded, turning back in her pew to face the front of the altar.

Nodding his head with a quirked brow, Tommy's interests seemed to peak at the mention of the peculiar name. "Rich name. Does she have last one?" He asked sarcastically, his deep Birmingham accent accentuating with each word.

Though to the question he believed to have a simple answer, Tommy received nothing but silence in response. "I don't know it." She replied, not turning back to face Thomas as she could already imagine the face he was bound to pull at her less than convincing statement.

Turning to the women with scrupulous eyes, Tommy almost found humour in the situation. "You treat this girl as kin, but you don't know who she is." He mocked, as he slumped back into the hard wooden bench with that arrogant smirk stretching across his lips.

"Her life before Small Heath is one thing she never speaks of, and something that you won't find out about unless she wants you to know. Which she won't." She snapped, forcing the Church back into a stiff silence with a newfound tension.

"Yet, you still trust her?"

A second didn't even have the chance to pass by before Polly swiveled back around to face Tommy, her dark brown orbs hiding no lies in them as she spoke her next words. "With my life."


	2. Ice Blue Waves Colliding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When ice blue eyes finally meet

Dressed in a bold bloody red from head to toe, lips stained with the same colour, the striking blonde waltzed down the dirtied cobbled streets heading in the direction of the infamous Garrison pub. Though while most women flock in that direction in hopes of catching the eye of one of the devilish Peaky Blinders brothers, wishing for a night of heart pounding electricity, Aurora found herself drawn to the pub for a much different reason.

From the tweetings of her little birds, there appeared to be a new stranger gracing the grounds of the dank and grimy town that Small Heath established for itself. Her delicate beauty and empty background almost falling in parallel with Aurora's own story, so much so that it couldn't stop the spiralling thirst Aurora obsessed over as she worried over her own dark secrets that she had so far skillfully hidden. The question remaining if Grace Burgess was in possession of an equally threatening life herself. 

So with the glorious power she felt filtering through her veins, Aurora pushed open the clouded door to the building and in turn drew the rowdiness of the football hooligans into a peaceful silence as they all turned to stare at the women. Stopping in her strides in an act of innocence to this _surprised_ attention, Aurora flashed them a snake charmer's smile before the captivating sound of glasses of ale being placed down on the bar behind them brought back the boy's attention to their one true love.

While the men resumed their camaraderie and boyish excitement for the upcoming match, Aurora continued on her path to the bar, thanks to some fine young gentleman stepping out of her way to grant her some room. "Harry, how are we doing on this fine morning?" She greeted, drawing said man stumbling over to her with a clumsy smile.

"Aurora, wh-what are you doing here?" He stuttered, in slight shock that the women had decided to make her appearance in his establishment, it definitely being a large change from the usual drunks or local gangsters that normally pass through.

A lighthearted chuckle fell from her lips in that moment, the sound so airy and melodic that it could even melt the coldest of hearts down to that of a lovesick fool. "I get thirsty just like the rest of you, so I thought I'd come and get a drink." She replied, but there was that mischievous glint in her eyes that told Harry otherwise. "And I've also heard about a certain new barmaid that I haven't had the chance to meet yet." Her gaze dancing across his shoulder to the petite blonde, eyeing them curiously.

Upon the realisation that she was the topic of discussion, Grace quickly wiped her hands on her apron and made her way over to the pair with an endearing shyness that already had Aurora taking a shine to the girl. A naive kind women always managing to tug at her damaged heart. "Oh um, I'm Grace." She introduced with a soft smile, stretching out her hand towards the woman.

"I know." Aurora replied, taking a hold of Grace's hand as she stood there with a now furrowed brow to the questioning response. "A pretty blonde Irish women taking up lodgings in Small Heath. Word travels quite fast around here. Especially to my ears." Flicking out her packet of cigarettes and placing one in her smirking lips.

As Aurora blew out a cloud of smoke, Grace visibly straightened up her back, a striking defensive reaction that only managed to peak Aurora's fascination for the woman she had so very little information on. "I hear that there are plenty of Irish settlers in these parts."

"None that I would suggest you associate yourself with." She retorted, humor laced in her words, to ease the tension that was seeming to coil tighter and tighter in Grace's shoulders. Only proving that the new barmaid was much more than just a pretty face for the patrons to drool over.

"Well truth be told, I don't know much about anything for the people around her."

"Lucky for you isn't it that I show up then." Aurora added with a bright smile, leaning forward on the bar until her elbows were resting on the surface. "You see Grace, I take a certain pride in acquiring knowledge about the patrons of our quaint neighbourhood. And I'm more than hospitable to help you navigate yourself around these-" Her voice trailing off as she turns her head to the side to the sight of a group of men with beer now soaking their chins and shirts while the rest cheered in achievement. Her face pinched in a mocking disgust when she returned back to an amused Grace. " _Animals."_

With a short giggle, Grace nodded with a sweet smile of her own. "I would like that, thank you."

Satisfied at her achievement of a new friend, Aurora threw her finished cigarette in an ashtray, and stepped away from the bar. "Us women have to stick together, don't you agree?" She questioned rhetorically, turning on her heels to leave the bar until two figures came steaming in with a unspoken urgency.

Polly breathed out a sigh in relief at the sight of the blonde, having thought that she was going to have to go traipsing around the neighbourhood before she found her. "There you are, I was just on my way to find you." Closing the distance between the two as her nephew ventured off to the side into the private cub reserved for his family.

"I need a bottle of rum." Tommy Shelby ordered to Grace, Aurora's eyes becoming distracted away from Polly as his gruff voice invaded her ears for the first time. Without hesitation, Aurora couldn't help but begin scanning his features from her partial view. Of course, this wasn't the first time that her eyes had landed on the man that was on the tip of so many tongues, but she had to admit that she had never had the opportunity to see the cause of so many rumors about his heart stopping attractiveness in this close of a proximity.

Ice blue eyes resting on a bed of high strung cheekbones, dark brown hair being barbered to perfection underneath the fear-imposing Peaky hat. Aurora was not so modest to confess that she had not had the privilege of witnessing a man as encaptivating as he.

Yet, that wasn't the only thing she was capable to witness, she was also highly aware of the concern hidden beneath his cold exterior, matching that of Polly's much more evident expression. Her eyes once again focusing on Polly in front of her, she asked with a hint of amusement riddling her tone. "Whose died now?"

"No one if we're lucky. I need you to come back with us, seems the Chief Inspector has finally made himself known." She answered back vaguely, not willing to share any more information on it all with so many curious ears listening in.

Both women didn't have to say another word as they start back towards the exit to the pub, but at the moment Aurora passes the door to the cub, Tommy comes strolling out with a bottle of rum in his grasp and seemingly bringing everything to a startling stop. "You must be Aurora." It not being much of a question, more of a statement, as he takes in the grand look of the red women standing so poised before him. 

"I am." Stopping in her steps, Aurora swivels her body around until she is fully facing the infamous Shelby, her eyes trained on the cold calculating face that beholds so many ambitions and dreams for that of a small Gypsy-blooded lad.

Tommy's gaze however, didn't quite remain still, it inspecting each little aspect of the women's being until it created a fully formed image imprinted in the back of his mind. Starting with her immaculately styled golden hair, trailing down to her shimmering blue eyes and crimson lips. An image that would forever stay with him through the hardest of trials and tribulations that his spiralling world attacked him with, that small piece of salvation in the wars to come.

"Polly says I can trust you." He replied, the unspoken threats laced in the back of his throat when it came to the cache of artillery that only those three seemed to know anything about.

"You can." Her words blunt and true, finding herself as a procurrer of many secrets and lies but that of someone who still had the honor to only keep it in the vault inside her head.

The duo merely stayed there, standing opposite each other with fixed eyes, the room moving around them freely while they remained as a stagnant constant in the middle of their own calculating game of wits and suspicions. Yet, from the corner of their standoff, both parties could blatantly see the humorous sight of Polly's dramatic eye roll while she waited for their paranoia to be finished. So, with a clear of his throat, Tommy gestured out towards the door. "Come on, don't want to keep Arthur waiting too long." The three of them not wasting any more time before they exited the rowdy pub. Though it wasn't long before Tommy began his questioning of the unknown variable walking by his side. "So, you were a nurse."

Her arm looped around Polly's, Aurora glanced over to Thomas with a quirked brow, a smirk coming to tug at her lips. "Something like that." She responded, keeping up her ever so tiresome theme of only being the provider for vague answers.

"War duty?" He prodded further, knowing that it would be the one inkling of information he would need to unravel her story. Thanks to war records being a very helpful source, for a person's entire life being written down on paper.

Aurora had to stifle her own roll of her eyes at the almost insultingly easy trap he had laid out for, it appearing that he was most definitely underestimating her intelligence. "It was most certainly a war. Though, I don't think it's the same one you're referring to." She snarks back, the response already being at the tip of her tongue like the conversation had been rehearsed without Tommy even having been there.

His jaw clenching around the cigarette balanced on his lips, Tommy hid his agitation from the women well as he began to understand why exactly Polly had taken so much of a liking towards her. It was as if Polly had gone out searching for someone who could snake their way underneath his skin with furiating combats of the tongue. "Do you usually tend not to give people straight answers?"

With the familiar door to the Shelby residence and betting shop now in sight, Aurora slowed her pace down only a little until Tommy adapted to match it while Polly steamed forward to open it, waiting in the threshold for Aurora to follow through. "Now where would be the fun in that Mr Shelby?" She teased, an enrapturing smile lighting up her entire face once again as Tommy and her locked eyes, leaving him to only stop and stare on in that questionable stoic impassiveness that tends to be a permanent feature on his face nowadays.

Blonde wisps floating in the air, Aurora glided past a smirking Polly and down the narrow hallway to the sound of the envious sibling bickering that, unknowing to the rest of the world, managed to claw away a piece of the girl's heart. But at the alerting noise of her heels clicking against the wooden floorboards, two heads turned around to her direction. The third physically being incapable to do so.

At the sight of her well beloved friend, Ada didn't quite know how to feel given the mixture of elation and confusion running through her from the questioning matter of why she had even stepped into their _comforting_ abode. "Aurora, what the bloody hell are you doing here?"

Aurora's attempts to hold back her laughter at the sight of Ada haphazardly stitching up her worse for wear brother had failed spectacularly, soft giggles falling out as she held a hand up to her mouth to catch them. "From the looks of it, I'm here to make sure you don't paralyse your brother." She quipped back, receiving an adorably offended glare back from Ada as she threw the cloth in her hand over to the woman's chest.

While the two girl's carried out their friendly banter in an effortless and usual manner, the two men in the room only watched on with creased foreheads and wide eyes. Whereas John was now fully straightened up from his lounging matter against the door, his gaze trailing up and down the beautiful girl in boyish delight, Arthur wasn't really holding the patience at the moment for the same mindset. "Who the fuck are you?" He calls out, breaking up the girl's moment and back onto the matter at hand.

It was at that point that both Polly and Tommy finally made their reappearance back into the kitchen as Aurora gracefully fell into the wooden chair beside Arthur. "Well, I'm assuming you just heard her call my name. Or do you have blood in your ears as well?" Her small delicate hands gently grabbing a hold of two slightly less damaged sides of his face so she could get a better look.

"Who the fuck is she?" Arthur rebutted, his gaze locked to the madwoman tending to his face while this time addressing the question to someone who he assumed would actually give him an answer.

Polly rounded the center table and began rummaging through the cabinets in search of the large box of supplies that she kept lying around whenever one of her nephews turned up with new gash on the side of their face, calling out over her shoulder in response to Arthur's queries. "She's a good friend, and more than experienced in taking care of bloody messes. Don't worry you can speak freely. She can be trusted, can't she Ada?" Ada proceeding in giving a sharp nod of her head in agreement.

Tommy marched over to his brother in that moment, handing him the full bottle of rum as Aurora began her harrowing job of healing his broken flesh. "Here have this." He gifted, tilting the bottle of burning liquid down Arthur's throat before he grabbed a cloth and soaked it in the same substance and harshly wiped it over the numerous gashes littering his brother's face.

Pained winces toppled out of Arthur's mouth from the action, though with gritted teeth, he grabs hold of Tommy's wrist "He said Mr. Churchill sent him to Birmingham. National interest he said. Something about a robbery." As the words left his brother's mouth, Tommy noticeably tensed and slowly began to step backwards until he could lean on the cabinet behind him, eyes trained anywhere but the two knowing stares burning a hole in the side of his head. "He said he wants us to help him."

"We don't help coppers." John grumbled, eliciting Arthur in pausing his rant for a moment to acknowledge his words with a feverish shake of his finger.

"He knew all about our war records. He said we're patriots like him. He wants us to be his eyes and ears. I said-" A wince cutting off his words, as Aurora placed slightly too much pressure onto one side of his mangled thumb. Aurora gave him a mumbled sorry in reply, while she kept her eyes trained to the job at hand. "I said we'd have a family meeting and take a vote." He explained, looking up to Tommy with expecting eyes, in search of an easy agreement given the obvious grievances they would deal with if they refused. Though the only thing he got in return was avoiding eyes and a dead silence. "Well, why not? Mmm? We have no truck with Fenians or communists. What's wrong with you? What the fuck is wrong with him lately."

"If I knew, I'd buy the cure from Compton's chemists." Polly snipped back, her patience for her dear nephew at complete wits end with all this newfound trouble he has now dumped on their laps.

A steady splint now in place on the crooked thumb, Aurora placed down the roll of bandages with a prideful smile as she took in her work. Choosing to be grateful over the horrid times of her own life due to the skills she had been forced to perfect. "There, just clean the rest of the blood off your face and try not to break any people's faces and your thumb will be as good as new in no time." She instructed Arthur, breaking the stifling tension that had surfaced.

With a broken half-smile, Arthur turned to peer at Aurora. "Thanks doc."

Standing up from her chair, Aurora sent Arthur a quick wink before her lips quirked into a loving smile that she directed at her two closest companions. "I'll see you later Pol, Ada." Her eyes drifting back towards Tommy Shelby's ice blue gaze that burrowed itself in her soul and would most surely leave any other women speechless. Though, she was most certainly _not_ like any other women. "Boys." She parted, waltzing back out those doors with those same ice blue eyes tracking her every movement.  
  
  


~ ~ ~  
  
  


Night had quickly taken over the rather eventful day, new strange arrivals coming in hand in hand with new lies and secrets that Aurora was tiringly attempting to uncover, but such a task seemed much too big even for her talented birds. Yet, mystery barmaids were not too high of a concern for her at the moment, the web of destruction that Thomas Shelby had untangled the Shelby clan in however, that was another _incredibly_ long story.

Aurora had settled back into her comforting chair opposite the fire once again, replacing the newspaper and the whiskey in preparation for what she was sure to follow. So when the clock had struck exactly 11:03 three pounding knocks rattled against her door with an unmistakable force. The number of guesses she would have to make to assume who her late night guest was, being an incredibly low number.

With a heavy sigh, Aurora crossed her room over to the door and swung it open to reveal none other than Thomas Shelby leaning against her brick walls. His cold ice blue eyes once again crashing into her own with the raging emotions waring inside them spinning a story of unimaginable trauma that both have witnessed. "Thomas Shelby, to what do I owe this pleasure."

Pushing his leaning body off against the wall, Tommy took a drag from the burning stick wedged between his fingers, proceeding to use it as a pointer in her direction as he closed the already tight distance between them. "I think it's time you and me have a little chat, eh?" The words supposedly being a question, the premise meant for her to decide if she really wanted a notorious crime boss to enter her home. But neither party were naive or innocent enough to not know that any refusal on Aurora's behalf would most definitely not end in pleasant consequences.

Aurora doesn't even bat an eyelash as she pulls the door wider and retreats back into the warmth and comfort that her home provides, her eyes not even looking behind her as she hears his heavy footsteps and eventual closing of her front door behind her. "Drink?" She offers, her feet already taking her in the direction of the cabinet located beside the fire, well aware of the next words that were sure to come out of his mouth.

"Whiskey." He replies, eliciting a hidden smirk to stretch on Aurora's lips while she pours the dark liquid into the empty glass.

"You Shelby's drink enough whiskey I have half a mind to believe that it runs through your veins instead of blood." A cup now in hand, Aurora strides back over to Tommy as he stands in the middle of her living room inspecting the surprisingly nice accomodations around him in an unspoken impressed manner. It pairing hand in hand with even more questions swirling around in his mind as to where the women standing before him possibly came from.

Accepting the glass from her delicate fingers, Thomas stands there silent for the moment, mulling over his words, clearly aware of the labyrinth he has to follow to get the answers he truly craves. "No one knows who you are." He starts, watching as she simply stares back with a cocked brow. "I talked to Polly and my many sources, but no one can seem to find a single thing about you. Not even your last name. Care to explain to me why that is."

An unexplained smile fell upon her features at Tommy's words, the accomplishment she felt for such an achievement giving her much needed relief when it came to the obsessive worries keeping her awake at night for if she was doing enough or not. Even despite her current predicament of facing a obvious threat from the most intimidating man in Small Heath, she just kept on smiling. "I like my past to remain where it is." Her body turning away from him in that moment as she moves back over to her plush chair.

Tommy remains standing where he is, only his eyes following her carefree movements as she gazes back into the fire with unreadable emotion. "And why's that?" He questions, throwing back his drink in one solid movement before placing it on the wooden table beside her chair and moving over to block the flames from reaching her eyes. "You running away from a husband that didn't treat you right? Or is it that you fell pregnant before you made it to the altar?"

A breathy chuckle came tumbling out of Aurora's lips at that moment, the dark truth behind it all being so far more hideous that she grew surprised that Tommy Shelby could only offer her such bland and mundane choices in its stead. "Curious. Why do you think all my troubles would stem from a man?" She retorts, a mocking tone underlaced in her words that could cause herself to be tripping into very dangerous territory.

"It usually does with women." He huffed, reaching into his pocket for the cigarettes aching to be lit by his hand.

"Well, Thomas you'll come to realise that I'm not your ordinary women." A wicked smile painted on her immaculately crimson lips, it almost being mirrored by one of Thomas' own if he had given himself the permission to show any real emotions towards another human being.

"And I'm not your average man. I like to know the people who work for me, or the people who are working against me."

Standing up on her heeled soles, Aurora closed the distance between the two of them until she began to feel the heat burning from the end of the tobacco stick stuck in the corner of his mouth. "Which one am I then? Am I working for you or against you?" Her sultry tone, floating in the air and creating a suffocating tense silence to wrap around them both as they held onto their stand off against one another like the childish game of chicken.

The smell of her rose scented perfume cut through the toxic fumes and infiltrated its way into Tommy's senses, it leading him into a trance that so many small weakened fools fell for. "That's what you're supposed to tell me." He fired back, his voice just above a whisper as if they were in a crowded room huddled together to keep their private affairs a secret from wandering ears. And perhaps they were; neither of them seemed to be quite sure of anything at the present time while they remained trapped in each others presence.

"Yes, well I'm liking this little game of ours, aren't you?" Small delicate hands courageously reaching out and stealing the unfinished cigarette out of his mouth and pulling towards her own lips to take a drag from it herself, locked eyes never breaking apart throughout it all.

"I don't like games."

Finally breaking the exchange, Aurora gave him one more wistful smile before she maneuvered back around Tommy's strong build and to the roaring fire still burning behind him to discard of the finished cigarette. "No, no you don't, I have learnt that much about you. You like people to tell you what they want, and when they are going to want it. Expect you don't give them the same courtesy." She analysed, not taking the effort to turn back to Thomas to see his reaction until she heard the rifling of paper and eventual clink of a pen being dropped onto her wooden table. Turning back around, Aurora's gaze fell to the crisp white sheet laying in wait. "And what is that?"

"A contract of employment." He briefly explained, only prompting another pointed eyebrow from the woman across from him.

"Don't you have to be a legitimate business before you can have employees?" She snarked back, her hands snatching the supposed contract off of the table as she began to scan it's words with amusement running through her veins.

"We're getting there." He answers back, the ambitions and plans that he has basically shining in those mysterious eyes of his as he speaks. Something about it, making Aurora feel conflicted as if they should all be in fear for the troubles he was bound to bring, or to praise his infectious mind on the fortunes he could shower them in.

"And what exactly are you employing me to do?" She asked cautiously, for once in her life finding it near impossible to get a read on what could possibly be going on in a person's mind. And, with the reputation that Tommy Shelby persists, there could be an endless list of uses he could conjure up for the enigmatic blonde.

"Polly's told me about your network of spies. I want you to keep them on the alert for any news that might be an interest to me. Then every couple days, or whenever you hear something of importance, we will have a meeting where you will tell me all that I need to know." He responded simply, hands gesturing out casually as if meetings such as this one was a mere common occurrence for him nowadays. But, with the information she was being sourced on the increasing rise of the Peaky Blinders, she could not offer anything else in disagreement.

"Sounds interesting. Very thought out." She mused, a teasing glint flashing in her blue eyes as she stared back at Tommy's calm resolve, almost like he was waiting for some kind of protest out of her cherry lips. Though, none came and none would, because despite Tommy's obsession for having a formal record of employment, Aurora was more than willing to offer her services due to a certain duo of Shelby women who have stolen her heart. "Where do I sign?"

"Right there." He pointed to the blank space below her first name. Amusingly no last name in sight.

Plucking the pen out of his extended hand, Aurora leans down onto her wooden table to scribble the extravagant musings of her signature before straightening up and handing the document back over to him. "If that was all then Thomas." She trails off, striding back over to her front door with a hand resting on the knob while turning back to face Tommy still standing by the fireplace. "Or is there something else you need?" She questions innocently enough, only a hint of devilish undertones that the Shelby man was able to pick up on.

A crooked smile seemed to quirk up in the corner of Tommy's mouth at that moment, only sporting it for a flash of a second, but Aurora was able to spot it before it faded from existence. "Is there something else that I should be here for?" That thick suggestive Birmingham accent sure to leave her weak, as the danger he exudes managed to send her with that rush of adrenaline she so deeply craves.

Yet, with the twist of her hand the door clicks open and welcomes in the cold brisk night air to cut through the sweet tension lighting up their senses. "Goodnight, Mr Shelby."

His footsteps drawing them closer together for a single frame before he eventually departs into Small Heath's dark skies. "Goodnight Aurora."  
  



	3. Let the Games Begin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the first attacks are finally set into motion.

Aurora never considered herself as a religious girl. Her family remained devoted to their Catholic cross that hung symbolically around each one of their necks every moment of their beating breaths. Yet, with that fact alone, it made Aurora shun away from the teachings and beliefs that were cherished by so many. If only for the reasoning; if the devil could consider himself a holy man, then surely the whole religion had lost its true meaning.

Though she still found herself sitting in the uncomfortable wooden pews of Small Heath's modest Church for the simple reasoning of never being able to tell Polly no. "Do you believe in hell, Pol?" She asked abruptly, her blue eyes boring into the surprisingly intricate designs of heaven and hell reflecting against one another on the outskirts of a stained glass window that captivated her attention.

Her words managed to cut through the silence and pass towards Polly's ears, as she followed through with her daily task of showing remembrance to the unfortunate souls that didn't board that train back home to England. "I've witnessed many evil cunts in this life that I can only hope are burning there right now." She answered indifferently, her beliefs not something that she choose to look too deeply on, but with the men she has crossed paths with throughout her days, hell was most certainly a pit for their minds to be tortured in. However, with the slightly unusual question, Polly paused in her movements and turned around to face Aurora with furrowed brows. "Why'd you ask?"

Choosing not to meet Polly's quizzical gaze in fear that she will reach down into the depths of her worries and finally snuff out the many secrets she has laid hidden, Aurora's eyes remained fixed on the mesmerising painting. "We're in a Church. That tends to be the place people ask such monumental questions in life in hopes of a remedy for their incurable sadness." She responds vaguely, much to her typical fashion. Yet, as the words left her lips, there was something foreign woven beneath it all that only caused spikes of concern to raise in Polly's protective nature.

Luckily for Aurora, Polly never got the chance to further prod her for answers on this so called _'sadness'_ as with a thundering slam, the doors to the Church was pushed open to welcome in the unfamiliar adversary into their midsts. "A gentleman would take off his hat and put out his pipe." Polly snarked, venom clear in her voice as she turned back around to her task of lighting the candles. Likewise, Aurora didn't make any movement to turn around to greet their guest, even after his attempted act of disobedience at the noise of his pipe being slammed against the pews behind her. "I see you Specials only dare to come here when you know the boys are away at the fair."

"You mean your nephews. With their guns and their razors? Is it them you're lighting candles for?" The thick Irish voice of the Chief Inspector remarked, his heeled footsteps getting louder in Aurora's ears as he finally made it down to stand in front of her. And so, with the many tales she has been fed about the man, it was rather exciting to put a name to the face. But, if she was being honest, she was most certainly underwhelmed by the pure lack of .

"No. I'm lighting candles for the boys from the Garrison who lost their lives in France. There's a list there." Polly replied, that cool admirable stance still shining through despite Campbell's rather flimsy intimidating tactics of leering over Polly's shoulder like some bird of prey. Aurora could only watch on from her seat with slight amusement from the pathetic attempts.

"I've been told you never made it to France, Mr. Campbell." Aurora jabs, a growing smirk forming on her crimson lips upon noticing the bursting veins pulsating on his neck from her very much intended disrespectful remark to the overly prideful man.

"It's Inspector." He spits back through clenched teeth, suddenly finding himself with the need to take a few deep breaths before he resolves his obvious mask of righteousness. The sight only further amusing the two women as they exchange glances to one another. "So you've two have heard of me. I've heard of you." He retorts, before storming through the gate towards the altar with frantic eyes searching the grounds.

"Is it the Holy Grail you're looking for?" Polly asks, a clear innocence to it as they all skirt around the real underlying factor that has the Inspector tying themselves to the Shelby clan and their close associates. Like a live game of modern chess with the only difference being the much deadlier stakes they were playing for.

Campbell turned back around from his rather pointless searching, a quirked brow lighting up his face as he strides back over to the awaiting Polly. "As a matter of fact it is the Holy Grail I'm looking for. Something precious. Something stolen. Perhaps you know what I'm talking about." He threatens, arrogantly wrapping his beefy hands around Polly's neck as he pushes her behind into a wall. An instantaneous reaction coming from Aurora as she pulls the gun that remains securely latched from the holster hidden on her thigh and points it directly to the Inspector's temple with a frighteningly steady hand.

Campbell peers over to Aurora through the corner of his eyes while he maintains a steady grip on Polly's throat, a flurry of emotions littering his face from the shocking act. "Are you really so bold to raise a weapon to me?"

A haunting chuckle of laughter tumbled out of Aurora at his words, her eyes flashing a level of insanity that startled the Inspector to his very core. "I'm a woman of many surprises, _Inspector_." That sultry threatening tone invading his senses so rapidly that it managed to cloud his mind with such bewilderment he could barely comprehend Polly pushing back against his hand to strike a poisonous chaste kiss against his lips.

"Sorry, I misunderstood your intentions when you pushed me against the wall." Polly mused, her sarcastic and dry humor breaking the heavy tension in the air enough for Aurora to swiftly lower her gun and slide it back under her tight skirt to its steady holder.

Campbell eyes flickered between the two women, a clear wave of shock and disgust riddling his entire being when it came to them both considering their criminally confident ways. Walking back over to the altar, Campbell goes to unlock the Church's side door to allow a swarm of officers to invade the holy grounds in a feeble effort to retrieve his prised possessions. "Turn this place upside down." He ordered his men before turning back to the Aurora and Polly. "Arthur Shelby said you people would help us."

"If we don't know what you've lost how can we help you find it?"

Campbell choose to ignore Polly's words as he went back to steaming down the halls of the Church back over to the main exit. "But I have found out subsequently that I was speaking to the wrong man. Next time I want to talk to the boss. Lickey Tea Rooms. Friday. Eight o'clock. And when I say 'The boss' I mean Thomas."   
  
  


~ ~ ~   
  
  


Polly and Aurora had retreated back to the Shelby family betting shop and residence after their unpleasant encounter with the Chief Inspector, only to have found out that he had laid waste to the many lives of Small Heath in the forms of an impromptu raid in the early hours of the morning. Family belongings ripped apart and scattered amongst the dirt and grime the streets of the small neighbourhood has to offer, forcing women and children to attempt at repairing any little semblance they could of what they once had. 

While the women brewed a cup of tea and began to discuss the new development in their ongoing problem, the Shelby brothers finally managed to return from their little day trip with news of a new war and a prized horse in their saddle. To say that Polly was falling to her wits end when it came to the reckless nature of the Shelby men was a gross understatement that both exasperated and thoroughly amused Aurora to no end.

The Shelby brothers and a few of their closest men all stood congregated around the kitchen table where a large cantine of beer rested for their masculine bravados to indulge. All the while Aurora and Polly sat calmly at the table re-countering all they had managed to compile together of the Inspector's provocation. "The coppers had told everyone that Arthur'd agreed to it when he was arrested. They said the Peaky Blinders had cleared out to the fair to let them do it."

"I never said nothing to that copper about smashing out bloody houses." Arthur spat back, clenching tightly on his cup of beer that he skulled back in one tense and aggravated swing. Clearly finding his little run in with the Inspector still freshly humiliating and rage infusing despite all the physical scars being wiped clean from his appearance.

"All right which pubs did they do?" Tommy cut in with a roll of eyes, his patience running thin and exhaustion creeping up on him given his rather strenuous morning of blinding and slicing. Stressing the fact that he was very much not in the mood for the job of having to tame the wild animal raging inside of Arthur when he receives the smallest of provocations. 

"The Guns, the Chain, the Marquis. All the ones that pay you to protect them. Only one they didn't touch was the Garrison. Make sure people think we were in on it. He's smart, this copper."

Feeling rather spiteful at the Inspector's staggering arrogance, Aurora couldn't stop the scoff from slipping from her lips at Polly's unintentional praise. "That's a kind word for him." She sarcastically spit, her words tangled in so much venom that she managed to elicit a sly smirk from John sitting beside her. His love for fiery woman with devils dancing in their mistakenly innocent eyes being one of his guiltiest pleasures.

With the lack of movement from the mindless men who simply continued drinking their beers, Polly quickly snapped her fingers and sent them off packing with her ferocious nature. "Go on. Drink your beers, get out. You'd better show people you're still the cocks of the walk."

"Hand out some cash to the landlords of the pubs. Pay some veterans to fix the places up." Thomas commanded his men, shuffling them out the door as they all let of begrudged curses and threats to the coppers who ruined their otherwise peaceful morning.

The group of men started leading themselves out the kitchen at their bosses' orders, but noticing that Thomas wasn't joining the pack, Artur turned back with curious eyes. Easy to see that Arthur was beginning to find trouble with the inability in being able to read the overtly clever and secretive ways that post-war Tommy carried with him. "So, what about you, Tommy?"

"I have to go to Charlie's to stable the horse. She looked footsore in the box." Tommy briefly explained, not choosing to meet his brother's stare as his mind began to start turning on his upcoming dealings with this added variable that he had yet to account for.

"Let them see your faces." Polly ordered one last time, as one by one the men filtered out of the betting shop to their various number of tasks that were set out for them. Leaving only a conspicuous trio of Polly, Tommy and Aurora, the large worn doors were shut off from the rest of the business dealings happening outside the kitchen, finally giving them the space to speak about their main troubles. "So we all know what they were looking for." Polly acknowledged, as Tommy's calculating eyes landed themselves on Aurora in a scrutinising way, clearly still holding onto his paranoia for how exactly she had came into such knowledge. "You don't read the papers."

Despite Aurora not even regarding Tommy's burning stare, at Polly's vague questioning he turns back to his Aunt with tired annoyance stretching across placid face. "Racing papers." He answers back, taking a long draft from the freshly lit cigarette balancing within his fingers.

"So let me tell you the odds. I reckon it's three to one, there'll be a revolution." Polly retorted, frustration coiling in her shoulders from Tommy's complete impassiveness when it came to the new threat literally lurking over their shoulders.

With a flicking gaze, Tommy's cold ice eyes landed back on Aurora to see if their resident informant had anything to say on the matter, but she for once remained quiet on her opinion. Only urging Thomas to want it more so, due to the baffling enigma of influence she somehow casted over men that must leave them haunted in their sleep with only her radiant features left in their minds as a reminder. "I wouldn't bet on that." He replied back to his Aunt, repaying his attention to his cigarette once again.

"That copper's betting on it. He's not going to let it rest till he gets those guns back." Polly urged, desperately trying to emphasize the true threat that their new foe presents to the entire backstreet business that they had fought so hard to achieve. Not to mention, Thomas' life.

Leaning forward on the head of the chair in front of him, Thomas mulled over the Polly's words with his usual level of perception. "Did he talk to you?" He asked, able to pick out the blatant conviction behind his Aunt's words, in turn leading him to believe that she wasn't basing her fears on rumors or whispers alone.

"Both of us. In the Church." She revealed, fishing out a tobacco stick of her own to light, finally admitting defeat with trying to get Thomas to see reason in his risky game of life and death he was so eager on playing.

Tommy's eyes found Aurora's once again, this time with newfound amusement shining in those solemn stares that managed to tug a smirk to slip onto her devilish lips. "You go to Church then?" He teases, the image of the woman before him in a holy place such as a Small Heaths quaint Church almost feeling too oxymoronic for reasons he didn't quite know how to put into words.

And deep somewhere in the corners of her thoughts, probably severely damaged by past traumas, Aurora found herself taking Tommy's jokes as a compliment. The pleasure taking over her at the notion that she would never be associated with something as false and foolish of the beliefs of her family. "What about my appearance tells you I wouldn't, Thomas?" She retorts, a mocking innocence to her voice as she lifts her tea cup up to her lips and takes a delightful sip with only her two entrancing eyes staring back at him.

For maybe a split second, Thomas nearly felt himself let slip a boyish smile, though with quick reflexes he still managed to maintain his firm features with only his eyes being the key to any sort of real emotions he might have been feeling. "Did he try to find our Ada?" He redirects at Polly, noticing a sudden tenseness reform in her straightened spine.

"She was sleeping."

Actually letting himself show it this time, Tommy let out a breathy chuckle alongside a shake of his head, his possessive and protective mind already whirring with men he should possibly be maiming. "Where was she sleeping, Pol?" He throws back, a sudden dark tone running through his voice that Aurora had yet to hear from the crime boss. With Polly's reluctant silence following his question, Tommy decides to go to the woman herself, who should most definitely be informed of the answers. "Eh, I bet you know where?"

And she did. The secret affair of Freddie Thorne and Ada Shelby having caught her attentions months and months ago when it had only been a stolen surprised kiss between two cautious friends. "Nowhere that would interest you. And you only are paying me for _interesting_ information, correct?" Aurora fires back, her face unchanging despite the lie trickling off her tongue.

"He knows you're the boss. He wants to meet you. Will you talk to him?" Polly added, obviously changing the course of conversation before Thomas could launch them both into some kind of pointless interrogation for the secret fling of his dear sister.

Yet, with the tiredness still riddling his body, Thomas had very little energy to fight either of the women on the matter anymore, especially considering that the day had hardly even managed to begin. "No. You don't parley when you're on the back foot. We'll strike a blow back first." The intricate weavings of his brain already setting alight a plan that should leave the Inspector in his own puddle of embarrassing shame.

"Never a dull moment with you Shelby's." Aurora mutters, breaking the tense silence shrouding them all and offering only a moment of light before they were back in the dark world that they all secretly chose not to admit that they loved.   
  
  


~ ~ ~  
  
  


One thing that Aurora was beginning to learn about Thomas Shelby was his outstanding ability to actually leave her thoroughly surprised with the impressive, if not slightly manic, plans that circle his brain. So when she had heard of the impromptu bonfire happening in the open wide streets with images of their dear King being alight in the embers, a marvelous grin envelloped her face.

By the time that Aurora had arrived, she had found a large group of bustling patrons, all taking advantage of the unique turn of events giving their mundane lives some excitement with a reason to drink and sing in the middle of the streets. Heels clicking on the cobbled streets, Aurora brushed past jostling limbs until she could spot the famous peaky hats adorning the top of the three infamous brothers.

"Chuck them on boys." Thomas jested, as John unloaded the many portraits under his arm into the already hefty pile melting away.

"Gentlemen, and what do we have we here?" Aurora called out, attracting the eyes of the Peaky boys as she moved into the space beside a grinning John, who immediately made himself friendly with a lazy arm being thrown around her shoulders.

While she was most sure the boyish smirk John was giving her would cause any other handful of women to blush profusely on sight, Aurora could only watch on in glittering humor, with a quirked brow and a broad smile. "We're havin' a lil' political demonstration." He fired back, his free arm motioning out to the burning portraits providing them with the orange hue dancing across their skins.

Aurora flickered her gaze over John's shoulder at his reasoning, her flame lit eyes meeting _his_ familiar blue ones once again with silent questions ringing in her ears over the ingenious conjurings he has come out with this time. Yet, meeting his cerulean blue, she knew she wasn't going to get her answers just yet, and for some inexplicable reason it sent a course of electricity coursing through her veins. "And what do you know about politics, John?" She asked jokingly, her gaze once again meeting her charmer's.

Leaning in impossibly closer, Aurora could see the mischievous glint running rampant in his eyes. "I know that its a load of dog shit that fancy men in suits argue on 'bout while we're off fucking their misses'." His booming laughter roaring through the night and setting Arthur off in his own cackle with her giggle following suit. And, if she had returned her gaze back over to Thomas in the background, then she may have even witnessed the rare sight of his dimpled genuine smile beaming in the fiery light.

"Boys, go see if we have any more donations." Tommy's voice broke out, ceasing the joyous moment with a not so sly demand for privacy. Though like the good soldiers they were, John finally lowered his arm from around Aurora's shoulder and parts with one last fleeting wink, as both Arthur and him jostle one another back and forth back through the cobbled streets.

Moving to take the space John had vacated, Aurora kept her attention remaining focused on the bonfires flames dancing across the burning parchment in front of them both, it almost like one of those puppet shows that used to entrance her back when her hands had remained unbloodied. "So, I'm guessing this is your blow back?"

Reaching into his pocket for the comfort of his silver encased cigarettes, Tommy brought one up to his lips and struck up a match before inhaling the toxic fumes and watching the smoke entangle itself with dark clouds emitting from the bonfire. "Then you'd be guessing right." He responds in that stark cold tone, turning away from the burning red to face Aurora straight on, in turn eliciting her body to match his movements until they fell into their ice blue stand off. "But before that, do you have anything for me?" 

Daring to be the first to break eye contact, Aurora glanced around to the many people loitering around whilst her signature smile graced her lips, in a sight that was already beginning to become ingrained in Thomas' mind. "A little informal for a meeting place, don't you think?" She teased, her eyes once again becoming drawn to his stoic unflinching gaze, sadly no humor to be found. "Fair enough, it's your choice, boss. But, the only things I've been told is something that I'm sure you're already well aware of." She sighed, watching the smoke leave his plump lips in an intoxicating fashion. 

"Well tell it to me anyways so we can both be sure." He retorted, his words almost bringing the sense to Aurora to suspect that this little encounter of theirs was a test of some sort. A test of knowledge or trust; Aurora wasn't quite sure. 

"The Lee family have declared you as their enemy, a bullet etched with your name has already been gifted to your uncle as a warning to the bounty now placed on your head." She informed, though if she was being completely honest, she was one-hundred percent certain that Thomas most definitely did not need her for that kind of information. The moment he put his blade down on their skin, was the moment his bullet was etched. 

So when she noticed the glimmer of happiness flash in his features, she wasn't even the slightest bit surprised. However, she most certainly was starving of curiosity. "Good, then everything is moving as planned." He mused, before his calculating gaze fixed back to the distance behind them, waiting for his arrival to deal with his next order of business. 

Aurora was sensing a pattern in herself every time she is in the overwhelming clutches of Thomas Shelby's presence, it was this new sense of excitement and adrenaline from the many mysteries she was almost begging to unfold. "You truly are intriguing, Thomas Shelby."

Her words drawing him back to her confounding and equally mystifying ways, the many questions surrounding her enough to make any man worried, especially from a man who likes to thoroughly understand all his chess pieces. But for some unattainable reason, she was stirring much different emotions within the frozen man. "I'm sure the same could be said about you." Background noise and movements stilling to a nearing nothingness behind them as their ocean eyes caused a crashing storm between them both for a time many would consider much too long. 

"Rory!" A voice broke out into the air, the scene falling to a close between the two characters as the littlest of the Shelbys comes bounding over to the blonde with open arms. The force his tiny body has in nearly causing Aurora to stumble to the ground releasing another round of giggles falling sweetly from her lips as she gazes down at the bundle gripping tightly to her skirts.

"My dear Finn, now where exactly have you been hiding?" She chastises, sinking to her knees in front of him with a faux look of hurt crossing her face, all the while ignoring the curious stare of Thomas Shelby burning into her side. 

"I'm a very busy man, Rory. Gotta lot of business to do." Finn explains, jutting out his chin and straightening out his hat, just like he sees his older brothers do when they are acting all serious and tough. 

Having to bite down on her lips to hide the grin practically begging her to let slip, Aurora momentarily flicks her gaze back up to Thomas' with a shared humor being exchanged between them before she returns her adoring eyes back to Finn. "Is that so? Well I have no doubts you have half the girls round here fighting for your attention but how about you make some time for me in your busy schedule, eh?" She asks, receiving a hurried nod of Finn's head that satisfies her enough to bring her back to a standing position, hands coming up to ruffle his short clipped hair. "Good now that's settled, I'll leave you to your _activities._ Thomas _."_ She parts, sending him one last farewell glance and then finding her way back down the cobbled streets with the notorious clicking of her heels 

But before Aurora could get too far down the alleyway, Thomas' voice picks up one last time with a call over his shoulder. "Call me Tommy!" The words making her momentarily pause in her steps, a small smile creeping its way onto her lips before she once again made her way back down to Watery Lane.  
  



	4. Special Delivery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A special delivery of a symbol from the ghosts of Aurora's past lands on her doorstep.

Growing up, Aurora didn't understand the meaning of peace; of serenity. Every morning she would wake up to aching limbs and a life threatening chaos hanging over her head that would leave her blood pumping through her veins so quickly, she barely knew what a steady beat was supposed to feel like. So, upon that fateful night that burned fires inside of her for the dread and agony that ruptured through her torn and fragile skin, when blood was coating that white pristine dress, she found it confusing when she finally found the silence.

That silence that doesn't associate itself with death or finality. No, but the one that offers safety. That silence that brings comfort and warmth to an otherwise frozen morning. Aurora found that, as oxymoronic as it may be, in the dirt and grime of Small Heath, Birmingham. In the home of the Shelby and Gray women, who gave the heartbroken girl that had turned up on their street somewhere to simply sit and appreciate that feeling that occurs, only at the crack of dawn, when the sunlight filters out of those panned windows and hits her dewy skin with such a kindness that it actually forms a true smile to grace her rosy lips. 

A feeling that she never wanted to relinquish. 

So on most mornings, Aurora found herself at the large wooden table situated in the Shelby household with a crinkling black and white newspaper gently balanced on her lap while her hands remained occupied on the welcome sensation of the freshly brewed cup of tea slightly scorching the tips of her fingers. Though of course, she was most certainly not alone, by her side was Polly, following much the same morning routine as Aurora. Which in itself was surprising enough, Polly always spouting out some criticism over the biased stupidity littering its pages. 

And while Aurora considered herself to be rather perceptive, finding it almost too easy to read upon the subtle tells that people have yet to even realise they produce, she suspected nothing of an ulterior motive across any of Polly's actions that sadly dull morning. That was by far a very rookie mistake. "So are we going to continue our conversation?" Polly questioned innocently enough, her eyes moving away from the dreary news of the same old shit and up to stare at the side of Aurora's avoiding gaze. 

Not even wanting to look up towards that stern face she knew Polly was wearing, that sight alone being one of the only things in this world that actually scared her anymore, Aurora found the brown swirls of her tea increasingly fascinating. "Which one are we referring to this time?" She naively asked, her mind genuinely having to work in order to find cause of the suspected lecture she was going to be poisoned with. 

"The one where you were telling me all about your incurable sadness." Polly spits back, referring back to Aurora's foolish slip of tongue in the Church only the day prior. Her cursed recollection of everything and anything really not doing any favors for Aurora's much preferred hopes of simply moving past it all. 

With a heavy sigh, Aurora cursed herself for ever letting those words leave her mouth, the act in itself truly having just been a moment of weakness that the broken fragments of scattered memories in her head let slip while she was barely paying attention. "That was purely hypothetical, Pol." Aurora mutters back in protest. 

Yet, she should be aware that if there was one person on this Earth that she couldn't lie to, it would be Polly Gray. "You really expect me to believe that? Ever since all the boys came back from France, you've been different. On edge, distant. Afraid." She fires back, folding up the paper in her hands down to her lap and in turn allowing her to quickly lean forward in her chair and grab a vice-like grip onto Aurora's busying hands. "So are you going to tell me what it is you're keeping from me or are you simply going to wallow in whatever mess you've gotten yourself into." Her words nowhere near a plea, because it was only a fact that Polly doesn't beg. But, with that passion in her eyes that Aurora finally had the courage to look into, she could see the underlying worry that was demanding her to relieve some of her secretive burdens down on Polly's shoulders. 

Though, Aurora wouldn't do that; she couldn't. There was simply too much of her that cared too deeply for the women sitting opposite her, that would ever dream to poison her livelihood by spilling the dark truths nestled in the dark corners of her mind. "I keep a lot of things from you Polly, I thought you'd be used to it by now." So she instead snarks back, humor clear on her unrevealing face that she could see clearly brought down of wave of disappointment on Polly's features. Luckily for Aurora however, the familiar sound of Ada clopping down the stairs came drowning out the tension riddled air. "Ada! We were just wondering where you were." 

Oblivious to near everything around her, Ada waltzed down the stairs and over to some leftover bread over on the kitchen counter in the corner, with an almost childlike freedom bouncing in her step. "I was in bed. Couldn't sleep. Then I couldn't wake up. Then I was cold and then I had to go for a wee. Then I was with this bear on a boat, but that was just a dream. Then I was hungry." Ada rambled, amusingly, all previous conversations forgotten between Aurora and Polly as they exchange questioning glances to one another. All the while Ada manages to scramble up a generous portion of bread in he grasps, sitting down in the chair between both women. "Why are you reading the paper?" Ada asks Polly, stuffing her food in her mouth so greedily Aurora couldn't help but marvel at the sight.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Polly responds tiredly, not even sparing a moment to move her gaze away from the writing.

With her mouth still packed with food, Ada snatched Aurora's paper away from her grasp, ignoring the faux annoyance written on her pretty features while simultaneously fighting off her extended attempts at retrieving it back, whines and giggles shattering the peaceful atmosphere from both girls. The scene in itself not paying any homage to the wise and mature ages they were supposed to be. "I've never seen you read the paper. I've only ever seen you light fires with them." Ada teased at Polly's expense once Aurora had managed to rip the paper away from her hold.

In a new huff about the depressing and troubling manners lining up outside their walls, as well as the tiredly combatting efforts it took to penetrate the closed off and emotionless facades too many people in her life were choosing to wear, Polly set down the paper and turned her attention to the two children before her. "BSA are on strike. The miners are on strike. IRA are killing our boys, ten a day." Polly ranted, not taking note of the subtle glance Ada and Aurora passed between each other at the mention of strikes they knew to be organised by a certain passionate man. Yet, given her view was now without any obstructions, Polly's narrowing gaze pierced into Ada's confused and doe eyed face with such scrutiny it was enough for the women to nearly shrink up onto herself. 

"What?" Ada questioned shyly, exchanging a more obvious glance with Aurora by her side, who merely gave a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders in response. Not for the first time being rendered just as clueless as the rest of them when it came to the inner workings of Polly Gray's mind. 

"Stand up." She ordered, falling into that routine Shelby-esque stance of demanding actions with little to no room for argument of the contrary. 

Though, Ada always did fancy herself as a rebel to the Shelby name she so _loathed_ to be associated to. "Why?" She whined, like the movement in itself would take all her energy away from her like some sort of thief in the night. Ada also proved to be the most dramatic of the Shelbys. 

"Just stand up. Side on." Polly rushed out, the slight twinge of panic in her voice not quite being picked up by Ada as she slumped out of her chair to follow in her orders, standing by the large green wooden doors with a humored annoyance pulling at her lips. Though, with that little slip of emotions falling out a Polly's mouth, Aurora's brows furrowed into her own curiosity driven inspection, wondering somewhat worriedly if there was something so obviously amiss that she had failed to notice. 

Though, when Polly rather abruptly grabbed a good handful of Ada's breast in her hand, Aurora truly gave up on figuring it out for herself the bizarity of Polly's inner thoughts and feelings. "Oi, what are you doing?" Ada exclaimed, stumbling backwards with wide accusatory eyes pointing up at her Aunt as she crossed her arms heavily over her chest. 

Not taking notice of the two accusatory stares being directed her way, a deep worried frown pulled at Polly's harsh features as she braced herself for the answer her niece would ultimately admit to her cursed question. "Ada, how late are you?" All faces in the room dropping to a blank standstill as they contemplate the severity of the burden of a question no man would ever be able to understand the severity to. 

A blazing blue and burning brown drilling down on the young women's face, as they waited for the reveal that would change their lives that had been constructed over these past few years, or simply let it fall into a passing laughable worry that they chastise themselves over why exactly they had chosen to obsess over it in the first place. "One week." Ada meekly replied, the unsettling gazes not faltering. "Five weeks." She admitted, unable to stop the dam of truth from bursting open completely, now that she had allowed the small crack to let slip. "Seven if you count weekends, I think it's a lack of iron. I got some tablets."

Polly fell back into her chair, exhaustion running freely through her now, a bored deadpan gaze returning back onto Ada as she mentally fought with herself on whether it was deemed ethical or not to thrash a pregnant women. "But they didn't work." A heavy sigh escaping her thinly tight lips as she hurriedly searched for a relief inducing cigarette she was sorely in need of, her gaze refusing to lock on either woman as her brain began to formulate the depressing intricacies of a plan she was now forced to carry out. 

With high tension once again clouding her self-proclaimed safe haven, Aurora attempted on cracking it, in the form of a potentially mistimed joke she really should have reconsidered saying out loud before opening her mouth. "Well, which one of us is electing to tell Tommy then?" She jested, a few forced chuckles falling from her soft rosy lips as she flicked her gaze between the two Shelbys harsh glares now pointing in her direction. A loud childish groan slipping out of Ada before her forehead met the wooden table, rocking the foundations in a sad pathetic metaphor for their erupting lives. 

~ ~ ~

A day had already passed since Ada and Polly had ventured in the dark shadows that the night provides to seek out the confirmation that the secret whisperings of women hold, only to come back with the information that they all suspected, and dreaded. Yet, once the inkling of knowledge came to her attention after the notice of one of her little birds, Aurora could only feel one sense of emotion; Envy. 

Envious that Ada was given the chance to rebuild anew, to commence the next chapter in her life with someone who, granted isn't a stable or a wise choice when it comes to partners, but loves her unconditionally and with a deep all consuming passion that has her smiling for hours on end. Something that once upon a time, Aurora believed would be her future. A future that would have been the escape she had always dreamt of. 

But, fate is a cruel mistress. And to Aurora, she showed no mercy. 

However, flashes of the past were something that Aurora chose not to dwell on, even despite Polly's increasing suspicions and constant bereaving to drag up the mysteries that she has been fighting so hard to cling onto. So, with the intention to block out the world for the day, Aurora was heading back to her humble abode down the darkened cobbled streets with a shining smile painted across her petal lips for all passerby's to welcome. 

Drawing closer and closer to her front door, flashes of a dark gushing red stemmed to a poisonous green had her stumbling in her steps with the smile she was previously wearing dropping quickly from sight. Frozen to her spot a mere inch from her door, Aurora's cerulean blue had trouble tearing themselves away from the seemingly innocent image of a delicate fully bloomed rose laid harmlessly on the ground by her feat. Hopes and wishes for it simply being from a shy admirer attempting to make a romantic gesture the only reason she was capable of standing upright any longer. 

But it wasn't the truth. She knew with a heavy heart and ice cold blood ripping through her veins, that it was by far the furthest thing from the possible truth. Flashes of a white wedding dress painted in red, images of dead bodies laying at the feet of the man she had loved most, _her_ laughter bouncing off the sacred walls like a hyena circling prey. It all running circles in her head in such a dizzying fashion that she became unaware of the voices calling - yelling - her name until an urgent grip latched onto her shoulder in a startling awakening. 

Whipping around with staggered breaths, Aurora met Ada's flustered face with an attempted mask of composure she was most definitely sure she was failing to maintain. "Aurora! Are you alright? I've called your name only 'bout a hundred times." Ada rambled off, potentially so swept away in her world-altering problems to notice the sheer layer of panic plastered throughout Aurora's body, from her shaking hands to her jittery teeth and all the way to her glassy eyes that spoke much too many truths. 

Resisting the urge to run a hand through her immaculately styled hair, Aurora shook off whatever residual shock and terror remained coursing through her and expertly mirrored a charming smile to ease her nerves. "Sorry, I- I was just stuck in my head. What are you doing here?" She stammered, mentally cursing herself at the foolish slip up, but continued smiling throughout the rest, hopeful for Ada's frazzled mind not to notice. 

It proved that luck was on her side for a change, as Ada brushed off her ansty behaviour with a wave of her cigarette holding hand, breathing in a deep inhale before all but blurting out why she had turned up on Aurora's doorstep in the first place. "You know what the doctor said." She spoke matter of factly, well aware of Aurora's somewhat annoying habit of knowing near every word that was to come out of her mouth before she even had the chance to think it. "So you must also know that I am in need for some distraction to forget about the human being currently growing inside of me and the reaction my dear brothers are surely going to have off it." She rambled, the words coming out in such a rush that she was just short of hyperventilating with the amount of air she was frantically sucking in.

Wide-eyed and completely out of her depths on how to comfort someone on this level of emotional instability, Aurora simply grabbed a tight grip on Ada's bumbling shoulders and swiveled her around in the opposite direction. "Off to the pictures then." She muttered, selfishly feeling a moment of bliss as she ran away from the dainty flower sitting idly on her doorstep and in turn the past that remained tethered to it.   
  
  


~ ~ ~  
  
  


The black and white images of a lover's first meeting danced across the screen in a dreamily fashion, the hopeful captivating scenes unfolding out for the pleasantry of those fortunate enough to have the spare time and money to be wasting away the middle of the daylight hours. However, with the sounds of the melodic piano accompanied by the obsessive crunches of Ada's popcorn filtering into Aurora's ears, she tried all she could to not allow her mind to tumble back to the harsh realities that this world has served her with. Ada's desperation for a distraction not only being in service to her needs away from the pregnancy on the horizon.

So with the loud obnoxious bang of the two parlour doors on her right hand side being swung open, a light filtering into the otherwise darkly lit room, both sets of girl's heads swirl around to greet the sight of Tommy Shelby storming into the theatre with inspecting eyes. Ada quickly turning back around in her chair with a ' _hmph'_ while Aurora continued to watch his striding movements down the empty aisles as he locked onto his target of their two adjacent seats. 

Sliding into the chair beside Aurora, Tommy kept his gaze on the running screen in front, both women following his actions, as they all sit in a baited silence for a single moment awaiting Tommy's inevitable outburst. Aurora, perhaps not being the best of friends considering the slight amusement she couldn't help but feel at all the drama. "'Course you're bloody here." He spoke, breaking the silence, with a very short words under his breath. The ridiculousness that he has been home for months now and hasn't even seen a glimpse of this women before, and now, it seemed near impossible to not spy her blonde wisps and red painted lips around every corner he walks. It was _almost_ laughable. Almost. 

"Morning to you too, Tommy." Aurora dryly responds, sparing a glance in his direction out of the corner of her eye before she goes back to watching the brutes of men fight over one another for their foolish affections. 

Not paying Aurora's words any thought, that sense of that overwhelming protective urge that seemed only to rise between the confines of his only sister's troublesome and untameable acts surging through him the backs of his eyes in dark blinding waves. "Tell me the man's name, Ada." He spoke gravely, images of sliced up men already passing along his line of sight as he prepared for the violence he was itching on enacting. 

Though, while most would have taken warning to the deep grave underlining of Tommy's words, the sound enough to leave many cowering under his tightly polished shoes, Ada had long past been immune to the many fear instilling techniques that her brothers try and impose upon her. "Rudolf Valentino." She bitterly replies, her words alone causing Aurora's eyes to roll to the back of her skull. 

As despite the limited contact Aurora may have experienced with Tommy Shelby, she knew well enough the whens and hows on navigating her responses to his regular demands running parallel to his varying levels of silent rage. Therefore it was rather unsurprising when he swiftly jolted out of his seat and went back steaming down the rows of chairs, leaving the two women to simply watch and wait as their picture abruptly stilled to a harsh darkness. Straightening up further in her seat, Aurora turned to Ada with a sweetly sarcastic smile coating her cherry lips. "Good job, Ada. I was enjoying that film."

The confused murmurs of unsuspecting patrons was cut short with Tommy swinging open the doors once more with a heightened vigor, not sparing any of them a glance as he clicked his fingers with a booming command, "Get out! All of you! Go on. Now!" Tommy didn't waste any time with tempted kindness this time as he stood at the head of the row, ice blue narrowed down on their still movements with dangerous challenge resting behind them. "I said tell me his fucking name." Eyes flicking down to the apparent source of many secrets, not a moment of doubt believing that the bastards name wasn't on the tip of her tongue. "You obviously fucking know. So either one of you spit it out."

Aurora brought her impassive gaze up to Tommy's, blank features releasing nothing of the truth if Ada's wishes so hope to keep it silent, no amount of gangsta threats capable of allowing that name to pass past her mouth. Even threats of the Peaky Blinders leader himself. 

But, it seemed Ada wasn't in the mood for any more secrets, as she teared her eyes away from the blank screen and towards Tommy with as equally as much venom laced in her stare. "Freddie fucking Thorne!" She dropped, watching with slight satisfaction as it rendered the sharp tongued Thomas Shelby at an utter loss for words. "Yeah, your best mate since school. The man who saved your life in France. So go on. Go on, cut him. Cut him up and chuck him in the Cut!" She screamed, rocketing up out of her seat as she watched Tommy disappear back down the aisles and out of view with that Shelby anger rushing adrenaline through her pregnant body. "Oi, I'm a Shelby, too, you know. Put my fucking film back on!" She huffed, collapsing back down into her chair beside Aurora. 

Rudolf Valentino filtered through the tension riddled room, silence otherwise allowing free reign to take control of the worries flooding Ada's tired and overwhelmed mind. "So, as far as distractions go, how did we do?" Aurora drawled out, breaking whatever dark hole Ada's thoughts were spiralling herself into, amusement clear in her tone as she attempted to hold back her laughter with little to no success.   
  
Ada rolled her head on her shoulders towards her grinning friend with as much animosity as she could muster written on her features, grabbing a handful of her popcorn and chucking it at her pretty face "Oh, shut up." 

~ ~ ~ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi lovelies, so sorry for the long wait and the less than satisfying update, it's short and not a lot has happened except for the tiniest slither of Aurora's mystery past creeping up on her in the form of an unexplained symbolic rose. And I have not read through it sooooo. Believe me I would hate me too, if I was you. But, let it be known I am not amazing with updates and by no means consistent. Nevertheless, I am going to keep delivering because I love Tommy Shelby too much not to. Also, next chapter is going to have a lot of you guys happy, so look out for that one. Oh and p.s I have written this potential series/one shot of a new OC Lyssa Shelby in which is a sister!Shelby fic and posted it on tumblr and stuff but if you guys want me to publish that story, please let me know. Anyway sorry for the long note, and I hope you enjoy! Love you al


	5. Meeting with a King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two broken souls have a discussion, and an old ghost comes back into the picture.

It was gone by the time Aurora returned. Disappeared without a trace, leaving behind only paranoia and obsessive thoughts in its wake. The eerie feeling of demons lurking around every corner prolonging her episode of unrelenting insomnia that Aurora was presuming would not despair before the violet and golden hues peek up on the horizon deeming it a new day. A new day that could very well be her last, for if her eyes had not deceived her and she hadn't mistaken the rose nestled on her doorstep was there for the very reasons she dreaded.

For not many know the true meaning of what her name entails, and the ones who do, are the ones she ran so desperately from.

So, while resting has already been established as a mocking routine, Aurora found herself in a realm of a bizarre déja vu. A smouldering glass of whiskey held in her grasp, reflecting off the burning embers in front of the grand chaise Aurora found herself lounging on, the simple scene being brought to an abrupt end by a heavy fist racking against her boldly coloured door.

Despite the running thoughts of what devil could be lurking behind that boundary, Aurora walked towards her door with no fear as what was to come. Her delicate hands wrapping around the brass handle as she pulls it open to the rather anticlimactic sight of a soaked Thomas Shelby awaiting rather impatiently on the other side. No invitation, or act of pleasantry exchanged before he was barging past the threshold, as well as Aurora, and into the warmth escape her parlour offered.

A sigh leaving her lips, Aurora's eyes fluttered closed for a brief moment, no mask of her usual cunning ways composing her face with the game of wits and underlying meanings she so usually played. Only a sense of naked vulnerability and exhaustion coating her features, as she turned to Tommy from her spot next to the remaining open door, watching him make himself comfortable in the opposing chair beside the fire. "Tommy, it's late." She tempted, staring at the side of his head as he hunched forward in his chair, hands brought to his chin while his elbows rested on his knees.

The sight conjuring many thoughts of a curious intent, that despite herself Aurora was having trouble to ignore. The inner workings of the man in front of her begging more and more questions out of her with each passing moment she spends in his overwhelming presence.

"I need a drink." He muttered lowly, his ice blue eyes for once not latching onto hers with a deep ferocity that she denies makes her heart stamper in her chest just that little bit faster. Instead he remained looking forward, his line of gaze landing on a rather insignificant piece of wallpaper that Aurora doubted was truly registering behind his cold gangsta eyes.

"I don't know if this is about Ada but-"

"I just put a bullet in me horse's head." He interrupts, his voice cutting off the spew of words Aurora was attempting at tiredly wringing out. Sadness being drowned out by his inability to show weakness as he retains his cold bluntness to it all, the only miniscule sign of impact of the shakiness Aurora could see being the slight tremor in his clenched fists. 

Another indignant sigh passing her lips, Aurora closed shut the door from the outside world, striding over to her already open bottle of whiskey and pouring another glass of the amber liquid. "Was it a mercy?" She asked, turning back around to face him and closing the distance between them as he tracked her soft bare feet padding against the carpeted floor.

Leaning back lazily in the chaise, Tommy finally brought his gaze to Aurora's delicate features, his dark wilted mind tracing each line of its beauty while refusing to let any of his appreciation for it show. So instead, Tommy took the glass laid offered in Aurora's extended hand, warm fingers skimming just barely against his frozen touch, and brought it up to his lips in one blunt swig. "He looked at me the wrong way. It's not a good idea to look at Tommy Shelby the wrong way." His voice commanding out his words as if they belonged in a play for all the world to study and commit to memory as sacred text.

Though, as Aurora stood before him in that moment, there wasn't a single flinch or murmur that passed on her features, only a silent pity. A pity that Tommy was having a hard time not to despise on her pretty face. "Are you trying to make me scared of you, Tommy?" She asked next, her body expertly finding her chair and sliding down onto it without breaking their locked gaze.

"I shouldn't need to make you. You should already be scared." He quickly fired back, the usual sensation of becoming an icon for those passerby's on the street cowering away from his figure as he walks the cobbled roads or the silence that shrouds a busying room when he enters, a normality that only this one beguiling women seems to upheed. Just another factor among many that Tommy accounted for his fascination. 

A soft chuckle ran out at his words, horror stained pasts flashing up in her warred mind as they lay face to face with the man sitting before her. Despite the probable beliefs that he is no good man, he was a saint adorning white wings compared to those hunting her down with pitchforks and hellfire. "I was done being afraid a long time ago." She responded, reaching over to retrieve her forgotten glass sitting idly on the small wooden table beside her.

Aurora's words seemed to strike a fuse in Tommy's unlit eyes, a shimmering depth of ocean blue unyielding in its contact to hers as he ponders over their apparent mutual lack of the fundamental instinct of fear. Such a dangerous thing to belong without. Yet, here they were. Two people fractured by their nightmares that don't halt in their infestation even in the daylight hours. Their only comfort being the numbness that had begun to take over them both as they strive for whatever they can take from this world, before this world takes them.

A stagnant silence fell upon them both in that moment, Aurora's gaze expectant on Tommy's vacant stare as she awaits for the dam of truths that she could only assume was about to spill onto her lap. "You know in France... In France, I got used to seeing men die. Never got used to seeing horses die. They die badly." He admits, that strong resolve that remained a constant in his voice cracking under the weight of his own thoughts, it momentarily stunning Aurora into a moment of shock as she witnesses his lapse of vulnerability.

Though, Aurora believed she was slowly unwinding the enigma that was Thomas Shelby, his many complicated layers upon layers gradually being peeled back one by one to reveal one new inkling of vital knowledge to thirst her quench each time. So as for the aforementioned first world war and the many horrors it had stained the likes of men, Aurora knew it was a subject Tommy chose not to reflect on, similarly to how she chose's to operate in many ways.

"Careful Tommy, keep talking and I'll believe there's a heart in that cold gangsta shell of yours." Therefore it was for that reason, Aurora chose to counter Tommy's dark spiral into the abyss with a familiar jab of humour to stable him back into reality. The corners of her ruby lips turning upwards at the small glimpse of a smile she managed to surface out of him. The sentiment in itself being absolutely ridiculous for Tommy to hear; a heart? What good would a gangsta, like himself, being doing with a heart?

It was after another pause of reflective silence that Aurora took her chance of leading Tommy down another road of conversation. A piece of information from her little birds having stirred some surprising emotions in the young woman upon hearing the rumors that had travelled to her ears. "I heard you have a date for the races." She prompted, coyly turning her gaze down to her glass as her finger traced the rim in slow entrancing circles, round and round. "Grace truly is a pretty thing, isn't she?" She added, peering upwards to his remaining stare from underneath her long butterfly lashes.

There was a hint of a smirk coming up to his lips then, it being shamelessly presented for her to see. "Does that bother you?" All previous vulnerability washed away by the egotistical arrogance most men seem to inhabit, granted some men more then others earning the big-headedness with their unarguable stunning looks and mesmerising charm.

Yet, male egos and their need to flaunt it didn't do much to lead Aurora into their beds for the night, instead only eliciting a roll of her eyes accompanied with a slight scoff from the back of her throat in its stead. "Please, you may consider yourself charming, but I'm no fool to fall under your spell, Tommy Shelby." She retorts, the lie rolling off her tongue in a convincing manner for most fools; but it has been thoroughly established that Tommy Shelby is no fool. So, Aurora saw it wise to move quickly forward before he started to act on that insinuating look he was throwing her way. "And besides something tells me that you aren't bringing her along because you find yourself sweet on the new barmaid. You're making a move on Billy Kimber."

And there it was, just another confounding truth falling from her lips that not even his closest familial ties had managed to pry out of his cold calculating movements. So with a sigh, Tommy reached down into the pocket of his coat, retrieving his trusty cigarettes and using one to point in her direction with narrowed eyes. "Are you ever going to tell me how these spies of yours works? How they get you your information?"

A clever smile came across her face then, inner pride in her intricate systems shining through her radiant features. "I thought that we've already established that I'm not the type to divulge my secrets."

Tommy clicked his tongue then, stealing her gaze away from hers for a moment as he cocks his head to the side, his mind seemingly racing with questions upon questions he was thirsting to draw from her entrancing self. "And you have many secrets."

With a small hum in agreement, Aurora stood up from her chair and headed back over to the idle bottle of whiskey, bringing it back over with her as she moved to stand a mere inch from his seated figure. "That's one of the reasons you like me, is it not?" She questioned innocently, doe eyes looking down to meet his ocean blue as she twisted the bottle cap open with her delicate hands.

An unrelenting mask held back Tommy's burning flurry of emotions inside, holding her gaze while reaching over to his empty glass and holding it out in front of her to fill. "I like you, do I?" That deep Birmingham accent accentuated with each word as it cut through the increasingly heavy room of tension building upon each second they maintained in their staring contest. Not even the sound of whiskey sloshing into his glass could tear Aurora's focus away from the enigma of a man sitting in front of her.

"You turned up at my door tonight. Could have chosen to head anywhere you like. Could have gone to see that pretty barmaid of yours. But you decided to come here. If that isn't because you like me, then why is it?" She challenged, placing the bottle down on the table beside her with a clink. No barrier left between their close proximity except for the still full glass held in his grasp.

Lust and desire felt like it was flooding his body in antagonising waves, the power of self control dwindling by the second as his mind tracks to the fire creating dancing shadows of black and gold on her soft face. But, he forced restraint. Needed that restraint when it came to Aurora. If it weren't the echoing warnings of Polly running in the back of his mind, or the many outstanding factors as to why putting trust into such an enigma would surely be foolish, then it most definitely was his inability to let this unyielding facade fall, even if it were for an exchange of a blissful night with a God-sent women.

"Perhaps it's because I like your whiskey." He responded finally, watching as a slight glimmer of unappointable emotion flickered in her blue irises. Perhaps it was _disappointment?_ Tommy could not tell.

"Perhaps." She echoed, finally breaking their contest and turning back to her chaise, falling back into less fuelled conversation. "I quite like Grace. I find her fascinating. But I must warn you, she is a liar. She never worked in that pub she claims she did back in Dublin. Her name has seemingly no ties to anywhere in Ireland." She recounted, recalling the crumbs of information that had been sent her way about the apparent mystery that Grace Burgess was appearing to be. Aurora actually thought herself to be quite impressed by such a buried background, despite the amateur levels of lies that were easily squashed.

"Why would she lie?" He fired back, that business-esque state washing over him in rapid succession with the slight furrowed brow and contemplating frown adorning his face.

"Some women lie when they want to escape their past. Some women lie because the truth is much too sad, or much too boring." She listed off with a small shrug of her shoulders, unconsciously using personal truths to fuel an otherwise clueless answer. "I haven't been able to get much else on her, oddly enough she seems very capable of keeping her story buried. Still, if you mean to drag her off to your dealings with Billy Kimber then I think that you should at least offer her the gratitude of allowing her to sing. What harm could a few broken voices do to Tommy Shelby?"

Nodding his head, Tommy brought the forgotten cigarette up to his lips, reaching into his pocket for his set of matches as his mind began to mull over Aurora's words. "Do you sing?" A quirked eyebrow pointing in her direction while a cloud of smoke swirled out of his lips.

"I used to."

"Not anymore?" He prompted, extending his hand in silent offering of the tobacco stick that was happily received by his counterpart. A deep inhale being dragged out into her lungs, as if the toxic fumes were a necessary companion for her next words to have the courage to come out into existence.

A rare show of weakness shone through Aurora as she met his stare again, a stare that Tommy was sure would not leave his conscious for a good while to come. "People who sing haven't had the hearts torn apart, because if they did, their voices would only cause the rest of the world pain." She darkly replied, taking one more long drag of Tommy's cigarette before passing it back to his rough and calloused hands.

"And what about those who no longer feel pain?" Tommy responded, a silent viewing of vulnerability passing between the two souls who normally hold concrete walls surrounding their empty casket hearts.

A sad smile gracing her face, Aurora met his tired gaze with a saddened and hardened truth she knew all too well to be true. "Everyone feels pain Tommy, even the broken ones." Another pause for baited breaths and harsh realities settling over the room. Tommy gladly breaking it with a clearing of his throat as he swiftly lent forwards in his chair and grabbed the bottle of whiskey, filling Aurora's glass with a hearty sample.

"Are you broken?" Tommy's question filtering in the air for only a moment before Aurora's light laughter filled the gap.

"I believe you already hold that secret of mine."

Raising his surprisingly full glass to hers, Tommy toasted. "To the broken ones." The clink of their glasses and the sound of their broken hearts beating the only thing echoing through the streets of Small Heath that sorrowful night.   
  
  


~ ~ ~  
  
  


Aurora had thought it had been an unnecessary arrogant show of power that had compelled Tommy to ban the locals in their wishes to sing through the shadowy nights and long drawls of the pub crawl. Her reasons in attempting at lessening his iron fist over the crowds of Birmingham coming from a place of compassion and a blasé reasoning of _why the hell not?_ But as she sat in that snug Shelby booth, legs crossed elegantly over the other with that much too regal-like posture for the comforts of the Garrison pub, forced into being witness to the butchers carving up that softly spoken song; Aurora found herself wholeheartedly agreeing with Tommy's wise actions.

The only reason she was continuing to persist with her blasted idea, being that of the unrivalled stubbornness laced into her DNA.

One thing that happened to drown out all the noise, however, was that of the unjust ramblings Arthur continued to spit out one after the other from the impossible winnings the blonde beside him kept on stealing from him. "Oh, stop your whining Arthur. I surely did not take you for such a sore loser." She teased, her staple red lips grinning like the Cheshire cat from the sight of that childlike pout resting on his aged face.

With that pout quickly turning into an equally as amusing frown, Arthur slammed his cards onto the table. "And who decided to let you in on this game, huh?"

A boisterous laughter coming from his right, John threw his arm around Arthur's shoulder, sharing amused glances with Tommy from the other side of the table. "You heard her man, stop your complaining. Aurora here is the only reason I agreed to come tonight. A beautiful woman is never something you say no to." He shamelessly flirted, his toothpick by the corner of his mouth bobbing with each flick of his tongue as he peered towards the blonde through his _smouldering eyes_.

Giving her cards one more peek, Aurora threw some more pounds into the dangerously heavy mix, not meeting John's gaze edgewise while she replied, "You should know John, that it will take much more than a few sweet words to make me fall for a Shelby?" Blue ocean eyes flicking upwards for merely a second to meet the ice blue sitting directly in front of her, a new sense of heaviness seemingly coming hand in hand nowadays whenever their gazes locked.

"Do you want whiskey as well?" A new sweet voice introduced herself, causing Aurora to turn to the petite Irish barmaid coming in heaving a bucket of beer in her hands. Grace's sheepish stare flicking to and from Tommy's impassive face in a horribly obvious display of infatuation that Aurora was forced to witness.

Though, despite the pretty barmaid attention, Tommy had yet to move his piercing inspection of the woman before him. "No. Just beer." He dismissively answered. The disheartened girl, swiftly shuffling herself out the room with eyes trained to the ground not long after.

"Why no whiskey, Tommy? Are you expecting trouble?" Arthur's gruff voice sounded, that small hint of stroppiness still resonating in his tone, and providing Aurora with enough humour for her lips to curve upwards into a devilish grin. The sight in itself awarding her a dark glare from the grown man and a smirk from the leader.

Though, before Arthur could grumble out a few more curses, a loud crescendo of screeching voices came streaming through the protective barrier of the snug. "Jesus Christ, Tommy, what the hell made you let them sing? It's like they're strangling cats out there." John moaned, his face scrunching up into a dramatic grimace, as if this could have possibly been the worst pain forced upon him

Sharing yet another subtle glance towards Tommy, a red lipped smirk once again appeared on her face. "I don't know John, I don't see the problem in these people actually sounding like they're glad to be alive." Standing up to her feet, Aurora skirted around the tightly packed table towards the snug door, ignoring the curious glances being thrown her way by the Shelby brothers. "I'll be back, and I'll know if any of you have looked at my cards. I'm talking to you Arthur!" She called over her shoulder with a burst of quiet giggles falling from her lips shortly afterwards.

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about!" Arthur shouted after her retreated figure, mumbling a few incoherent words under his breath until he managed to catch the vacant gaze Tommy was leaving on the spot Aurora had only just held. "And what did make you change your mind though, Tommy?" He teased, nudging John with his elbow a few times in a silent understanding.

Grinning from ear to ear, John watched that annoyed huff leave Tommy's lips and found himself revelling in the pestering opportunities he was being gifted. "I feel like it's to do with a certain blonde, aye Tom?" He added, nodding his head towards the door Tommy was now actively avoiding staring at in a weak attempt of nonchalance. "It's about time, Tommy."

Refusing to meet anyone's gaze, Tommy masterfully kept his face blank of any reaction to his brother's teasings. "Time for what?"

"Time you took yourself a woman. And what a woman she is." John boasted, it not taking a high level of intelligence to know where his mind was vividly picturing as John's stare became distant and a dreamy smile quirked on his lips. 

Sending John a sharp look, that only did but fuel the fire of torment he was surely going to be given, Tommy took a hefty swig of his ale before chucking in an unintended large amount of coins into the growing mix. "Just play the bloody hands." He muttered. 

Taking advantage of the rare moment of being allowed to step into the role of big brother, Arthur clapped a hand over Tommy's shoulder. "You stay the way you are, Tommy. Remember what Dad used to say. Fast women and slow horses. _Will ruin your life_." John and Arthur both chanting in unison, followed shortly by their boisterous laughter bouncing off the tight walls of the room.

"Alright boys, what did I miss?" In she came, that encaptivating confidence and charm coursing off of her in waves that Tommy was sure would end up drowning him in puppy dog feelings one of these days. But for now, he simply sent both of his brothers a pointed look, more specifically John, praying to the God he does not believe in that they for once can manage to keep their mouths shut. 

That devilish intent swimming in his eyes, John spared Tommy a rapid glance, it being so quick most would have not noticed, before he turned his full attention on the awaiting blonde standing by the door. "Arthur looked at your cards."

Arthur whipping round to face John with that deep ageing frown. "I fucking did not!" He bellowed, Aurora unable to contain her belly-aching laughter as she clung to her sides at the sight of Arthur and John attempting to fight one another in the confines that the table was constricting them to. 

Yet, with the arrival of two blinding white lights shining through the frosted windows, all fun and games quickly fled the scene. "Coppers."

"No." Tommy denied. Aurora's eyes turning to him with many questions she was sure he could answer from that all knowing tone he was using. 

Though, Aurora was given no chance to propose who Tommy had been so stealthily preparing for given the sound of a bullet ringing off a few feet behind her. "I said, is there any man here named Shelby?!" The easily identifiable voice of Billy Kimber echoing deathly silence through the once noisy establishment. 

Aurora's blood running cold as she stepped to the side to allow all the peaky boys out of the snug, false hopes and naive dreams of being capable of avoiding such a confrontation despite being well equipped with the knowledge that he was to be Tommy's upcoming rival. A ghost of her distant past a mere few steps from where she remained frozen by the doorway, her future being held in the grips of the meek man who had the potential to let all of her secrets spill onto the bar floor. That is, if he had any recollection of the young girl she was once. 

Taking a deep steady breath, Aurora retained her composed facade before striding back into the now practically empty bar. No doubt Tommy's influence holding the power for him to force the patrons to scuttle out of the premise at grand speeds. 

Keeping her eyes away from the seated newcomers by the opposite end of the table, Aurora approached Grace's side just as she set down glasses of the whiskey on the table. "You two, go home." Tommy ordered, not looking away from the deep comical glare being sent his way by the ridiculous looking mustached man sitting before him. 

"But Mr. Fenton said-"

"I said go home." Tommy cut off, sending Aurora a tilt of his head towards a door in a simple command she did not find any difficulty in complying to. Grabbing a gentle hold of Grace's forearm, Aurora guided them both towards the back exit of the establishment, groaning inwardly at the round of hushed curious questions flowing from Grace's lips in a rapid succession. 

With escape in sight, and the chance for unscathered consequences laying just at her fingertips, a voice called through the room once again at set in stone her fears coming true. "Hang on. You, the one in red! Do I know you from somewhere?" The clicking of Aurora's heels coming to a reluctant stop as she hesitantly swirled on her feet to face the inquiring Billy Kimber in all his furrowed confusion. 

Retaining a mask of indifference and a calm facade, Aurora gave Billy a flattering smile, ignoring completely the new inquisitive stare boring holes into the side of her head "I'm afraid not Mr Kimber. I'm sure if we had ever met before it would have been a memorable affair." 

As her impulsive plan had indicted, Billy Kimber quickly forgot about the blip of recognition he had thought he had spotted in the bold woman, instead his shameless manish behaviour took over from her flirtatious insinuations he was happily lapping up. "Right. Well, I've never approved of women in pubs, but when they look like you." He trailed off, eyes scraping up and down her figure in what was a most blatantly repulsive act that managed to stir surprising flushes of anger to envelop a certain Shelby brother being forced to watch. "You know what, how 'bout you stay for this, there's a seat right here-" Billy added, leaning back further in his chair as he reached to pull up a stool beside himself. 

Though before Billy was able to finish that predictable thought, Tommy cut in with a harsh bluntness he so favorably uses. "Aurora, think it's best you be off now." His ice blue piercing into the dangerous leader in front of him once again. 

Flicking her gaze in between the exchange, Aurora gratefully began twisting around back towards the door. "Goodnight gentlemen." She bid, careful to watch that her steps weren't hurried in their desperate act of escaping into the cold brisk night sky. Running thoughts of what she had truly already known burning brightly in her darkened mind as she walked back down those familiar cobbled streets . 

The sands of time had finally drawn to its final grain, and with that set her fate of what was surely going to come for her in the coming days. The devil was on his way to Small Heath, and all Aurora Malandra could possibly do...was wait.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi lovelies, here with another update. Hope you all enjoyed it, and if you did please comment below any feedback because it really does help when it come to things I can do to either make it better or maybe if people like certain interactions with characters more than others, so yeah make sure to comment. Anyway that's all for now, love you all!


	6. Keeping Your Friends Close

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tensions reach boiling points between Tommy and Aurora as loyalties are tested

Throughout the many years the war had stretched out for, Aurora found herself maintaining a relatively strict routine. It was simple and quite straight-forward, and very easy to maintain and acculamate one self to given previous chaotic natures. It included four things; sleep, receiving her daily notes of intelligence, discussing such intelligence over whatever crumbs their rations had laid out for them alongside Polly and Ada, and then following through with any other menial tasks that every women has to go through to get her through her day. Simple.

So when the boys finally came home and reclaimed their territory, routines shifted. And Aurora was very accepting of that fact. Because most of all, the one thing that had not undergone any sort of drastic changes due to the great war coming to its close, was her key and most important aspect of her day; sleep.

It was something she cherished and sought after, given the many trials and tribulations of her past, and now her present. So, when she abruptly awoke this dreary morning to the incessant rattlings on her door at such a godforsaken time, she cursed the very devils that sent this disruption and wished to rain hell on every living soul responsible.

 _And surprisingly enough_ , as she swung open her brightly coloured door, she saw a bright young face, with a happy grin and a peaky hat. No guessing needed to understand which devil had sent this envoy.

So with a withering scolding that left the boy scampering away after he had blissfully relayed his message, Aurora adorned a white blouse tucked into a deep burgundy skirt and wrapped herself in a damaging red coat, that unmistakably mirrored the emotions burning annoyance inside her petite body. Blonde waves flying freely in the wind as she stomped her way down the streets and towards the Garrison.

Despite clear levels of childish disdain written on Aurora's features, the woman somehow still managed to walk into the establishment with some sort of stealth, if the curious sight in front of her was anything to go by. As the first thing Aurora saw as she slid into the pub was the delicate Irish barmaid with her ear pressed against the connecting door to the snug just beside her. No doubt in her mind, who exactly was occupying those four walls. "Morning Grace." Aurora spoke, a soft smile on her as the bewildered women snapped away from the wall so quickly you would have assumed that it had burned her.

"Aurora! I didn't hear you come in." Her feet taking her even further away from the door with each tantalizing second. "What are you doing here so early?" She rambled over her words, stumbling frantically as her hands were attempting at grabbing at whatever was around her to busy herself with.

Simply standing still with a slight scrutinising stare, Aurora let a brief suffering silence wash over Grace's nervous figure before she calmly strided over to the bar with a sense of carefree obliviousness. "Tommy's little helper called. And no matter the size you can't be one to deny the request of a Blinder. Especially a Shelby." She explained to the continuously fidgeting barmaid. Her eyes darting over to the snug for a second as the rising sounds of bold songs began trickling out of the hovel. "Speaking of which, I hear Casanova himself invited you to the races." A sickly sweet smile coating her lips.

"Oh, yes, w-well as you say, can't say no to a Shelby." A sheepish smile coming onto her flushed features, bowing her head slightly like that of a schoolgirl who had gained attentions from her schoolboy crush.

And as his impeccable timing has it, the snug door came swinging open with a stumbling man raising his singing tones to courageous highs as his countryman attempted at guiding him out of the pub. "All right, boys, when I know, who knows what about what, I'll let you know." Tommy called out to their retreated figures, a disbelief smile taking route on his face while he turned and headed towards the bar. His gaze locking on his familiarly dressed blonde leaning against it.

"Well won't you look at that ladies and gentlemen, a smile on the face of Tommy Shelby, aren't we oh so lucky to witness it." Her sarcastic quip resurfacing as she was once again reminded of the early hours she was forced to awaken for the thorn of a man standing in front of her.

Coming to lean against the bar just beside her, Tommy nodded in greetings to the girl beholding that tone of voice his aunt and sister most favourably use against him. It being that much easier to predict how this conversation was going to go. "Aurora. I see Finn got his message along safely."

"Yes, next time you want to see me, maybe don't send an over-excitable eleven year old boy along with the invitation. He nearly broke down my bloody door with the racket he was banging on about at the crack of dawn." She mutters off dryly, the thought alone pushing her to want to take a swig of one of the many bottles laid out in front of her, if not for the once again _cruel_ reminder of this awfully early time she was forced to be awake for.

With a roll of his eyes, Tommy easily combated her amusingly sour tongue with a few sarcastic quips of his own. "I take it to remember you nagging his ear off about wanting to spend more time with 'im at the bonfire. I was simply aiding in your request." His hands digging deep into his pockets for a smoke it quickly set alight.

Turning to him in a beat of silence, Aurora shook her head with a sudden clarity washing over her face. "I am seeing it clearer by the day as to why Polly's always coming into my home cursing your name." Tommy simply held his gaze on her, a twitch of another smile fighting its way off of his features. Surely, if those words had come out of any other mouth, then they would already be on their knees quivering from the barrel of the gun that would be tightly pressed underneath their chin. But for some godforsaken reason, this one women truly-

"I thought you only allowed singing on Saturday." Grace's voice comes cutting in, drawing the two locked blue eyes away from each other and towards the third party that they may or may not have forgotten was there up until that moment.

Setting the bottle of amber liquid back on the bar, Tommy cleared his throat after a pull from the smoke still burning away at his fingertips. "Whiskey is good proofing water. It tells you who's real and who isn't." A sly glance being shared between Tommy and Aurora out of the corner of their eyes. Repetitive flashbacks of previous spindles of truth being commonly shared under the guise of a bottle of whiskey and the late night hours.

"And what did my countrymen want?" Grace encouraged once more, her eyes switching between the two opposite her.

"What do any Irish men want, Grace? Free drink and a reason for a brawl." Aurora happily chimed in, her words coming across as maybe an insult of some kind if it weren't for the innocent sparkle radiating in her pearly white grin.

With a dismissive wave of his hand, Tommy quickly squashed any curious nature he spotted in Grace. "Oh, they're nobodies. They drink in the Black Swan in Sparkbrook. They're only rebels because they like the songs." He digged, no sign of shying away from the clear jab laced in his mocking words, unlike the woman beside him, it earning a slightly unladylike snort from the woman herself.

Looking upwards at Tommy from underneath her dark fluttery eyelashes, Grace flashed Tommy a charming smile that Aurora didn't doubt had the capability to bend many a man underneath her innocent little grip. "You have sympathies with them." She asked, much less like a question and more like a statement.

Retaining a face so vacant of anything and all that could define itself as an emotion, Tommy stared defiantly back towards Grace. "I have no sympathies of any description." He retorted. Aurora unable, and uncaringly, wishing to cover up her single mocking chuckle as she rolls her eyes at Tommy's predictable cold answer. Turning her head on her shoulder to meet his unsurprising challenging gaze, his eyebrows raised up high and daring questions written in his eyes.

"Their accents are so thick, it's a wonder you could understand them." Grace's voice picking up, drawing Tommy away from whatever thinly veiled threat he was going to roll out to Aurora's bold defiance, to turn his attention back on the barmaid. "Next time I could translate."

"You'd work for me?" Tommy asked with furrowed brows. Aurora by his side, eyeing the innocent looking dove in front of her with increasing suspicions.

"I thought I already was." She replied with a new sense of confidence rising in her shoulders, her eyes briefly flicking to Aurora with an almost _triumphant_ glimmer shining behind them. The sight in itself only bringing a smile to Aurora's lips.

Either completely ignorant to the silent game that was happening right in front of his eyes between the two beguiling blondes, or simply choosing to ignore it, Tommy gave Grace an approving nod at her implication. "So you _are_ coming to the races?" Slamming a hand on the table, Tommy reaches into his pocket and flips out his roll of notes. "Two pounds, ten shillings." Following out with his transaction like any good businessman does, and hands Grace the money.

Feeling satisfied that that concludes one side of his business, Tommy turns to Aurora and jabs a finger in her direction. "You, come with me, we have some business to discuss." He orders, already turning and heading back over to the snug he was only just occupying.

Aurora gave Grace one last passing glance as she headed off to Tommy, images resurfacing as to what she had first walked into causing slight paranoia to slip into her mind. So, before Tommy could reach his snug, Aurora had sped up her strides and effortlessly grabbed ahold of one of his calloused rough hands, taking advantage of his confusion to guide him outside into the freezing cold air Birmingham cursed them with without giving him chance to protest.

Once the doors had swung to a firm close, Aurora dropped her hold of Tommy's hand, already beginning her walk down the cobbled streets with an air of nonchalance that had Tommy's mind drowning in questions. "Why we out in the cold, Aurora?" He called after her, his long strides already catching up to her with great ease.

"Well, it's a lovely day Tommy. You see enough of those four walls as it is, what trouble is a simple walk going to do?" She replied, turning her head over to him with a devilish smirk on her painted lips. "But, I do have a rather strict appointment, so go on, what is it you want to talk about so urgently?" She boldly spoke, motioning off with her hand encouragely.

Tutting his head to the side with a click of his tongue, Tommy stared out into the streets in front of him and away from the enigma of a woman marching along beside him. "Very few people, have the ease to talk to me like that, the way you do."

"Is this the business you really wish to discuss? The manner in which I speak." She retorted, heaving out a heavy sigh in a teasing faux fatigue.

"John's taking you to the races." Tommy announced all at once, in typical Tommy fashion. It causing a surprising amount of shock to pulse through her as she came to a blunt halt in the middle of the street, looking towards him with her mouth slightly open and questions swimming in her blue eyes. Tommy stopping in his steps as well, turning to look at her in whatever passes as humor for him. "What is it? I thought you were interested in going for a walk."

Heaving out a heavy sigh, Aurora continued down the path, glaring half heartedly at Tommy's infuriating smugness. "So, I'm going with John to Cheltenham because..."

"I need an easy way of getting John into the event, and no one would bat an eyelash if he was walking in with a pretty rich-looking blonde on his arm." He recounts off to her, another dismissive wave of his hand brushing the conversation off like there wasn't clearly some sort of ulterior motive he was obviously hiding behind his orders.

"And the way Arthur is getting in, it isn't sufficient?"

"Not for John, no." He replies, briskly. No sort of reasoning or explanation as to why that simple method being unsuitable for one brother but not another. After all, Aurora wasn't exactly surprised, she was beginning to learn that similarly as to how she likes to have her past shrouded in mystery, Tommy likes to have his every thought, emotion and essence of being locked away in some sort of Pandora's box that he daren't give anyone the key to. "You're going to arrive before me and Grace. You're going to drink, relax. I'm sure John is going to try his luck for a dance and then, when the time is right, John is going to help the boys with the Lees, and you're going to assist me in the negotiations with Kimber."

"I'm sure Tommy Shelby needs no help with negotiations." Aurora tempted, her mind whirring with pointless possibilities to see even a lick of sense that could earn her a way out of this predicament.

"You're going to be there to distract him." Tommy reasons, it seeming as if he has something to combat against any sort of excuse of feeble lines she could spit out in her defence. "Makes it easy to get harder deals past a man lost in his own 'ead."

Grabbing a handful of his iconic tailored suit-cladded arms, Aurora pulls them both to a halt once more. Blue eyes narrowing against his respective ice blue daggering ones. "Why is it you truly want me there, Tommy?" Her feet taking her one dangerous space closer until it began to feel as if they were breathing the same breath of foggy air. "Because I'll warn you now, if the thought of using me as some type of _whore_ in this _deal_ of yours crosses your mind, I'll stick a bullet in your leg without a single fuck as to who you are."

Tommy could only stare back at her then, words striking like poison and a face as deadly to match, and the one thing he could think of in that moment of silence that left bated breaths filling the void of voices, was how his hands were twitching at his sides, every nerve in his body wanting to reach out and grab her; claim her as his own. And because he was Tommy fucking Shelby, he took what he fucking wanted.

Cupping a hand on the soft curve of her cheek, Tommy's fierce gaze bore into hers with such intensity, that it had Aurora's brain scrambling for the capability to form actual words. "You're not a bargaining chip to me, Aurora. Kimber thinks he knows you, and maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. But, I'd like to bet that that idea will keep him occupied enough to allow this offer of mine to pass through without complications." Ticking his head to the side, Tommy cocks one eyebrow of his eyebrows while saying, "Is that alright with you, or do you still want to shoot me in me legs?"

Biting down on her lip to suppress the laughter that was itching to fall out, Aurora did quick work to compose the brief blip of shock that he had sent through her, all by that one mind-fogging touch. "The thought is still quite tempting." She mused. Tommy's hand slowly slipping off her face as an unabashed smirk quirked up on the corner of his lips. "I have to be off, places to be and whatnot." Her feet already backing her further and further away from his figure before he had the chance to open his mouth to say anything else. "Make sure to tell John to dress smart. I won't be escorted by some slob in a wonky tie!"   
  
  


~ ~ ~  
  
  


Racing through the streets of Small Heath, in a baby pink dress flapping against her skin, the blonde haired woman was passing people by in a blur that had men battling against their sanity for if the incandescent image had been real life or just a dreamy figment of their imagination. But, sadly, the truth of the matter was that Aurora, in all her glory, was most certainly terribly late. So incredibly late, that she found herself leaping over puddles in much too high a heels for it deemed to be safe without the issue of breaking both of her ankles in a horrendously painful fashion. 

Nearly skidding around the corner of the alleyway, Aurora locked eyes with an angered looking glare belonging to none other than Ada Shelby fully clad in her white wedding gown. The sight in itself nearly forming acidic bile to claw its way up her throat from the tattered nightmares that still manage to haunt her in her daylight hours. "God, Aurora, I thought you weren't going to show up!" Ada practically screeched, the wild Shelby fire burning so brightly that it just so managed to distract Aurora from her spiralling thoughts. 

Coming to a stop in front of the bride and groom, Aurora attempted at flattening out her untamed locks with an apologetic frown painting her lips. "I know, I know, I'm sorry. Your brother is a hard person to escape." She excused, glancing quickly over to Freddie who gave her a much too understanding look, no other explanation needed for him on the many complications of being in Thomas Shelby's orbit. 

"He doesn't know your here, does he?" Ada almost frantically questioned, a hand latching around Aurora's arm in a vice-like grip."

A scoff slipping from her lips, Aurora gently grabs a hold of Ada's hand pulling it away from her arm, and down to their sides. "I would hope after all these years you would choose to have some semblance of faith in me." She grumbles, a mock twinge of offence running underneath her words. 

"Right, sorry, sorry." Ada apologises. Her eyes dropping momentarily as she takes to skimming Aurora's finely dressed form from head to toe. Taking Aurora by surprise as she randomly slapped her hand against Aurora's bare arm, leaving a fresh raging red mark on the once porcelain-coloured skin. 

"Ow!" Aurora yelps, titling her body away from any more surprise attacks as her hand comes to cradle her arm against her chest. "What the bloody hell was that for?!" She exclaimed, comically large accusatory eyes pointing at the madwoman standing defiantly in front of her.

"You look too nice!" Ada defended, the faint sounds of Freddie's exasperated sigh fading into the background as the two women continue in their glaring match. "The bride is meant to be the prettiest at her wedding, but here you are looking perfect as always." She rages, with all the sanity of a Gypsy witch running about town casting curses on the innocent bystanders. 

Aurora couldn't stop the dramatic roll of her eyes at the typical dram-fuelled response she got from the Shelby. For some unknown reason, it seemed all the Shelby's has a flare for large boisterous shows for even their smallest of interactions; Ada most certainly not being an outlier for that fact. "Oh for Christ's sake Ada, you look stunning. Go on Freddie, tell your soon to be bride how good she looks." Aurora motions out to Freddie, eyes pleading with him to save her from his soon-to-be wife.

Ada spins around in her steps, looking to Freddie with a sudden nervousness casting over her features. The love in his sparkling dark brown boyish eyes striking it away with the speed of the lighting of a match that had the girl melting, in her beautiful white wedding dress. "Like an angel." The two love birds stuck in the dewy locked gazes, smiles coating either face with utter elation despite all the worrisome troubles that surely are left scattered in their paths. 

A soft fondness chipping away at her frozen heart, Aurora purposefully cleared her throat, gaining the couples attention and proceeding at nodding over to the end of the alleyway with a bright grin stretching across her lips. "Alright, we going now?" Ada squealing with excitement as the two friends dart their way over to the Church hand in hand, Freddie chasing after them with boisterous laughter as they all embrace the small dose of happiness away from the usual dreary gray sky clouding over their lives.  
  
  


~ ~ ~   
  
  


In recent days, Aurora has felt the tides shifting in Small Heath's rough waters. Each waking hour more and more reports had seemed to be flooding in surrounding the growing action happening in their dreary quarters. Wars being declared, mysterious bodies appearing from mysterious assailants and growing empires procuring new land and businesses to reign over with an iron thumb. And yet, all tangled strings end up naming one sole conspirator as the head of all the chaos enfolding round every corner.

Aurora was standing in the Shelby kitchen when she heard his distinctive harsh footfalls against the wooden floors. Without turning her body towards his stilled figure, Aurora kept her view on her busying hands as she tidied away the random tea cups and glasses left strewn around. "You've been awfully busy since I last saw you." Grabbing a rag to dry off her hands, Aurora turns around to lean on the counter, eyeing Tommy's silent stature. "Buying pubs, starting family feuds, even murdering IRA members if the rumors are anything to go off." She continued, tossing the rag to the side and gesturing towards the table scattered with the remnants of Polly and hers afternoon catch-up. "No little birds this time, only your Aunt Pol." 

Remaining in that overpowering contemplative silence between the two large open green doors, Tommy gave a short nod of his head, slowly beginning to stroll through the room and around the table. "Yeah, Polly, tells me stuff too." He replies, the vague undertone to his meaning having the potential to fall short with some people, if it weren't for Aurora's assumptions of the inevitability of this sort of encounter she had predicted coming to pass. "By any chance, was that appointment you were so eager to rush off to yesterday morning a wedding?" Tommy poses as a question, his brows furrowing as if they were in confusion while he came to another sudden stop a few paces from her feet. 

Aurora failed to react to his obvious prompts, blue-eyed stare unfaltering and passive despite that building rage she could see growing in his ice storm. "Eh?" He prods, his feet carrying him a few extra steps until he could use his towering height over her small frame. "Because I hear, that you were me sister's maid of honour. Sounds like it was a grand affair." His sarcastic quips holding much less humour than the other day. 

Shrugging her shoulders, Aurora plastered on an equally sarcastic smile. "I rather enjoyed myself."

Shaking his head, Tommy's eyes narrowed down at the blonde with unshielded anger pinching high in his tightly wound shoulders. "I employed you to do a job for me. That job, was to keep me notified on any rumor or whisper of anything and everything that would be of interest to me." He commented, waiting for any flicker of contrasting emotion to spark in her indifferent eyes. Growing even more high-strung when she had yet to falter even in the tiniest regards. "Did you think that Freddie _fucking_ Thorne still being in _fucking_ Birmingham, wouldn't be something I needed to know?!" His voice booming around the otherwise silent room.

"Yes, I do believe it was." Aurora calmly responded. "But, I also have prior loyalties that supersede yours Tommy, ones that were earned by your dear sister. She wasn't as deluded as to think that you would never find out, but she did hold me to my word that the wedding would be carried out before then, and I love her enough to face the wrath of Tommy Shelby if needed."

Letting out something between a breathy chuckle and harsh scoff, Tommy turned away from the women and wandered back across the room. "Yeah well do you wanna know what that love of yours has given 'er?" He asked rhetorically, spinning in his steps to face her once again with a blazing glare. "Her name on a warrant arrest, alongside her fucking husbands." 

Aurora's pretty face took up that detested form of pity in that long-stretching pause that fell between them. Her eyes seeming to inspect his very soul with that burrowing pitying stare she was directing in his direction. "Polly told me once, when you were all still in France, all about her many nephews. Described you all in painstaking detail. Enough that I could picture you all in my head if I tried hard enough." She began. Tommy already beginning to feel his fist clenching to a polar white by his sides. "She told me of a boy...a boy who smiled and who would hold the women he loves in his arms at every chance that God gave him because she had wormed his way into his sheltered heart." Her melodic voice filtering into the air with that same sense of a mother woving fairytale stories for their youngest of infants. 

Yet, with each word that trickled out her mouth he began to feel the build-up of a fiery acid burning a hole through his core. "You may be broken Tommy, and so am I, but I still remember what it feels like to be in love, and how there is nothing in this whole world that would stop you from finding your way back to them."

Frozen, shell-shocked, from the surprise attack of long-since buried memories scrambling themselves up into his unprotected self-conscious, Tommy struggled to move from his stagnant position. But then, suddenly and all at once, Tommy closed the distance between them both of them and held a tight grip on Aurora's chin. "You ever keep something like this from me again, and I'll show you what it's like to feel fucking afraid. That clear?" His dark Birmingham accent ringing just above a whisper as Aurora's defiant eyes stared back into his, awaiting for his smallest form of submission from her. 

His grip was potentially bruising with time waning without any kind of response, until finally, the small, _almost miniscule,_ nod is motioned from beneath Tommy's fingertips. Letting his hand fall back down to his side, Tommy stepped back a few more steps from their ensnaring proximity. "Good." He so mockingly praised, swivelling around in his steps and stalking over to the door in hard heavy stomps. "I'll see you at the races." 


	7. Daffodil Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What a sun-kissed yellow dress can do to a man...

Red. It's a bold colour. A colour that holds many meanings dependant on the eye of the beholder. Fire, danger, strength, power, love, passion, rage, wrath and arguably its most defining attribute; blood. It's radiance reverberates through the senses with a larger impact than any other colour Mother Nature has decided to conjure up. So, for that reasoning, many people decide to shy away from adorning such a vibrant shade, scared for the attention it will surely draw from passing onlookers. Or maybe, they believe that such a bold colour only has the ability to be worn by bold people.

Whatever the thinking behind most people's choices, that didn't matter much to the choices Aurora has picked out for her lifestyle these past few years. The flaming colour being just as much as a staple for the women as the devilish smirk and glittering blue eyes she pairs to match. No shade being left untouched, from the deep dark mahogany all the way to the peachy light salmon. It was a rare sight indeed to catch the mystery that she is, not wearing even a dash of the colour in her everyday wear.

Yet, as it so may seems, it turns out that today was the day Aurora had decided to put on a spectacle for the crowds.

Blonde waves streaming down her back and onto the yellow material cinched tightly around her waist, while the rest of the no doubt scandalous looking dress shimmied down her legs. The very sight providing Small Heath's dreary quarters with it's only glimmers of golden sunlight they could hope to afford. And hopefully, despite it's so dashing and daring look that will surely catch many a man's eye, there was one person in particular she would not despair falling under the radar for.

A soft gaze running up and down her form, Aurora grabbed the ends of her skirts as she swished from side to side, much like that of a young girl playing dress up in her mother's gowns for the first time as they naively fantasize about their valiant knight saving them from their dragon guarded tower. Yet, with harsh truths tainting fantasies of what would never come to pass, Aurora couldn't seem to lift that blushed smile onto her rosy lips, only a slightly saddened gleam seeming to shine in her dazzling irises as she stared back at herself in the dirtied mirror.

Sad commodities of pitied downward spirals weren't allowed to be sustained for long however, given the blaring, overly obnoxious, beeps of an eager motor being chirply ridden in short blasts outside her window. The boyish whoops of excitement that followed after not leaving anyone with half a brain to wonder on who could be the mystery driver awaiting on his fancied date.

Hurrying down the hallway, with only the momentary stop to check on the masked weapon firmly attached to her thigh, Aurora exits her home and locks her door in quick succession. Turning around to catch the smirking Shelby propped up against the door to the car with his signature toothpick bobbing up and down in his mouth while his eyes eagerly scan the beauty in front of him with unabashed glee. "Ain't I got the good end of the stick?"

Gracing a charming smile on her face, Aurora strides over to John with an approving eye running across his sharp attire. "Morning John. You're looking rather dapper." Her delicate hands coming up to plaster down the tight knot of his tie as he pushes his leg off the car, not feeling so generous to leave much space between them both in his shameless flirty nature.

"It's all for you Aurora." He flatters, with another chuckle running through. "What was it that Tommy said, you ain't wanting to go to the races with a slob on your arm, is it?" He questions with a tilt of his head, the corner of his mouth quirking up in a charming smile.

Nodding her head, Aurora flicked her eyes down his stature in a matching parry to his flirtations, it earning her a lofted brow from the man himself as she moved to lean in even impossibly closer. "And you have not come to disappoint." She practically whispers, seductive snakes slithering around John's pumping heart and squeezing so tightly he was starting to believe he saw stars in his vision. But, like a thief in the dead of night, Aurora swiped by his body and opened up the car door, muttering somewhat under her breath, "Wish the same could be said for your brother."

Shaking his head, almost as if that would help rid her sweet apple perfume out from his senses, John's mouth upturned into another smirk as he runs to hop in the car on the other side "What is it? You and Tom, have your first spat?" He teases, unspoken meanings that Aurora was choosing well to ignore not so slyly hidden under his words like that of the other Shelby brother she was so used to encrypting.

Flicking a stray piece of hair back behind her shoulder, Aurora kept her eyes on the road in front and away from the teasing glint she so well knew was shining in John's familiarly blue eyes. "We better be leaving now. Don't want to be late, do we?" Hands delicately folded in front of her as she sat with a poise only rich posh little girls were taught to do for the day they are escorted by a charming suitor to the various prestigious events they were destined for, in their flouncy yellow dresses.

The very idea that all her training was being wasted on some Birmingham sod, like himself, was not lost on John. So with a genuine boyish grin on his face, he sat up straighter in his chair and twisted the key into the ignition. "As you wish, Miss Aurora." He mused, setting off on the dirtied path in front of them without turning to look back over at the eye roll he knew she was giving him. No, instead his mind was stuck on the delicious chaos and mayhem he was impatiently waiting to revel in at the Cheltenham races.  
  
  


~ ~ ~  
  
  


They practically glided through the front door. Aurora had swiped the hat from his head and stuffed it into his pocket with a dazzling smile painted on her pretty features, like some sort of magicians trick with their mind boggling slight of hand that has you looking left instead of right where they real tickery is taking place. It left John momentarily stumbling on his feet, but with a tight grip Aurora held wrapped in the crook of his arm, they strutted through the large grand establishment and into the decorated bar and dancefloor without so much as one single person stopping them to question who they were. All because of the women John was sitting by right to his left.

Somehow, having found themselves a small table on one side of the room, John and Aurora sat leisurely with a glass of whiskey and some other fancy rich girl's drink he had heard Aurora spout off to one of the waiters in front of them. Yet, with keen eagle eyes spying across the room through the gaps of swinging dancers, John managed to spot the man of the hour himself. "There 'e is. King Billy Kimber sitting on his throne." Words dripping in venom spitting off his tongue, urging him to bitterly swallow some more amber fuel to quell the fighters urge inside of him. "Just looks like some rich tosser from 'ere."

Laying a hand on his arm, Aurora leaned forward with an easy smile, captivating John's attention like a moth to a bright golden light bulb. "Don't get yourself too worked up John, you've yet to go into battle." Her brilliant blue eyes dragging John away from the pits of destruction he was heading for and instead towards a much _much_ lovelier destination indeed.

"Yeah you're right. How 'bout a dance instead, need to put on a good show, don't we?" Cheeky chappy peak of his teeth shining through. 

Huffing out a sigh of mock disappointment, Aurora swirls around her _White Lady_ , gingerly taking a sip as she glances over to John through the corner of her eye. "Is that the best you've got? I must say I was hoping for more than just some feeble excuse to sweep me off my fee." She teased with a heavy amount of seriousness laced in her voice, leaving John with a bit of a furrowed confused brow for a small miniscule moment until he spotted that devilish intent swimming in her irises.

"Alright." He notes, standing abruptly from his chair with a slap on the table so loud it had neighbouring couples turning towards the noise with pinched up noses and scowling glares. Aurora paid them no mind however, she simply sat back leisurely in her chair with a heavy amount of amusement written on her face as she watched the show John Shelby was putting on for her.

With one hand being leant on the table, John levelled his eyeline to Aurora's, dropping his voice to a dark Brummie murmur only she could hear. "What if I told you to get off that sweet little arse of yours and come dance with me?" His face moving closer and closer to hers inch by inch, by no means an appropriate manner in which a gentleman should behave himself in the presence of the rest of society. His lips moving to the side of her face, nearly skimming the soft curve of her exposed ear as he whispered sharply. "By order of the Peaky _fucking_ Blinders." His body pulling himself away from her to spot the flushing sight of her teeth digging into her plump lips. "That any better for ya?"

Without needing the pleasantry of a reply, Aurora slotted her dainty hands into his outstretched palm and John pulled her up from her chair, perhaps a smidge to forcefully seeming as it sent her rocking into his chest. The pair storming through the crowds with a wide stretched grin on either face. Reaching the center of the floor John twirled her around in her steps, Aurora's yellow dress fanning out around her in a scene so spectacular it was surely meant for the pictures, as her and John swayed back and forth to the swinging music. Giggles and cackles brightening up the dancefloor as they moved around one another in an oblivious high. His hands surprisingly being respectfully placed on the middle of her back while two hands clasped together to guide them through the obviously disapproving couples they ignorantly passed.

On about the tenth spin John had giddly spun her on, Aurora somehow, inexplicably so, felt his piercing intense stare resting on the side of her face, forcing her eyes to meet his from up top of the bar against the gold detailed railing he was so regally leaning on. "Tommy's here." Aurora told John, her eyes resting on the other Shelby for just a moment longer as she supposed John's gaze followed it up to confirm her message. Stepping out of their dancing hold, Aurora notioned her head off to the door she was sure he was going to go scamper off to. "Off you go then. Go join the rest of your battalion."

A new face falling over his boyish features, John's thumb and index finger brushed over his lips and chin as he bowed his head lower down to her smaller figure. "Right, well, I suppose I deserve a kiss from the pretty dame before I go off to my fight." He joked, presuming some sort of scoff and spunky retort to fly past her lips.

Instead, Aurora leaned in slowly, enjoying immensely the shifting emotions she could see contorting on John's face the closer she came to his lips with her own. The very last second, lifting herself on her toes just that inch more that her lips pecked the corner of his smirk in a cruel ploy that had the poor boy reeling in his leathered shoes.

Setting herself back on flat feet, Aurora blinked those black as night lashes at him, skimming her hand over his arm as she waltzed past him. "See you soon, soldier." Footsteps leading her back closer to the center bar, with the momentary flick of her gaze up to his constant watchful stance on the gold detailed railing.  
  
  


~ ~ ~  
  
  


Tommy knew it was only inevitable that John was going to charm his way into a dance. He even told her as much just the other day. And not even a single nerve in his body could fault his younger brother in any way after just one glance at her in _that_ dress. That bright glaring yellow struck a nerve deep in his soul, reminding him of the daffodils that his mother so used to adore, so much so that she used to pluck them from the dirt and weave them into the tight space above her ear. He used to believe it was a pretty contrast, the most beautiful sight he would ever see; his mother's thick black hair against the sharp pang of yellow that laid against it.

But her.

She wore golden waves of blonde, that he has always appreciated the sight of since the moment he laid eyes upon her, that were laying so perfectly down onto her back against that so befitting fabric. It clinging so skilfully against the exact spots of her figure that it was meaning to, and surely leaving his mind both completely devoid of comprehensible thoughts, as well as an overwhelming jungle of needs and wants and desires all wrapped up into one. His eyes unwilling, unwanting, to remove themselves away from her twirling figure.

And then she looked up. And two blue oceans crashed against each other in what felt like a thunderous storm coming to its head.

He watched her as she removed herself away from their close hold, watched as John dared another step in her direction with a distinguishable smirk on his face even from where Tommy was standing. Watched as she leaned in closer, their bodies a single intake away from colliding. Felt his hand sub-consciously tighten on the gold detailed railing. And then he saw her press her lips against his brother's skin. Not on the place he had been picturing her place them, but just off to the side, just in that one corner of his mouth that wouldn't quite count as his cheek but nor his lips neither.

"Aurora is here." Grace's voice floods his ears. He could hear the confusion in her tone, the slight undertone of some sort of emotion he wasn't paying too much mind to analysing. His eyes tracking Aurora's movements as she sent his brother another ensnaring smile.

"Yes, she is." He bluntly replies.

"And, she's with John?" She poses next, this time her words sounding more as a question than her previous statement. Not that Tommy took to caring, because it was at that moment that she was sauntering away from the dance floor. Her eyes once again flicking up to meet his with a seductress intent. And a part of him began to tick, because he knew. He knew that she was putting on a show just for him. From her hair, to her smile to that fucking dress she was draped in, it was all for him, a silent challenge that neither party would speak of in direct sentences but would both know the meaning of and the limited rules they would both disregard alongside it.

Pushing himself off of the railing, Tommy turned his body to face Grace and her endless spout of inquisitions. "Do you dance?" He asked of her instead, blank cold features unyielding in their avoiding stance.

Though, it seemed like his evasiveness didn't discourage her too much as Grace's face uplifted into a fine little sheepish smile instead. "If I'm asked properly."

Holding out his hand in front of him, Tommy guided his mind away from the fucking sunlight and instead to the ruby stood beside him. "Lady Sarah of Connemara, will you dance with me?" And it was to be no question whether or not she would accept, her soft hands fell into his grip with no surprise as Tommy then guided them down the staircase and into the middle of the floor. He could feel her blue-eyed stare upon his hands slotting into position, with one hand on Grace's back and the other wrapped around their conjoined grip, roles having become quickly reversed between the two players.

Meeting her eyes from across the room, he arrogantly, boldly, so audaciously sent her a wink accompanied by the flash of a cheeky grin, that right about made him look like the young chap stuck in his troublesome teenage youth. And he could see the roll of her blue crystals, her poised position on the bar stool with her legs crossed upon the other turning away from him and towards the first courageous bloke that worked up the nerve to talk to her.

Tommy knew that Aurora prided herself on her analytical abilities of reading for people's strengths and weaknesses, emotions and thoughts, and whatever thing she conjures up from a soul with one scrutinising glance. So, that is why he thought she should've known better than to believe she could throw down a gauntlet at his feet and not expect a forceful strike back.

Because France may have fractured and broken many parts of the Thomas Shelby that once was, but, one thing it could not alter was the indisputable fact...

Tommy never loses.   
  



	8. The Demon Dances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> daffodils in spring couldn't equate to her bloom

Aurora was forced to supply persistent entitled men with half smiles and humourless giggles for what felt like an eternity while Tommy and Grace flounced up and down the floor with the rest of the amorous couples. She would be pressured to look in their direction every now and again, waiting upon the signal that Tommy was more than likely going to enact when the time had arrived to move forward into his _negotiations_ , as he had once called it.

Yet, every single time she would make her move to glance in their direction, she would catch his eye. And he had the audacity to flash her a hellish smirk in return. It was coming to the point where Aurora was beginning to outweigh the pros and cons in her head on what would happen if she pulled out her gun in the middle of this high-society-packed room and whacked it across his pretty face.

Aurora wasn't so inclined onto delving deep within her own psyche onto why exactly she was feeling as angered and bothered as she was appearing to be. Her mind simply took the first logical and sound enough answer it could think of as it brought back their last conversation of harsh words and empty threats and blamed it solely onto that reasoning.

Though, before she could move forward with her satisfying fantasy of violent tendencies, it seemed luck was on his side this time, as he gave his shiny pocket watch one more glance and subtly, or not so subtly, guided him and his dancing partner out of the crowd of dancing couples and towards a back door hidden away from prying eyes.

Hopping off her stool with a huff, Aurora bristled past the crowds and brushed off wandering hands as she appeared round the corner, where Tommy moved to open a door with a more than clueless barmaid stumbling on her feet behind him. "My gosh. You're serious." She astonished, more to herself than to the busying man flippantly ignoring her.

Aurora's distinctive high heels clicking on the tiled floor behind them seemed to catch Tommy's attention however, as his hand hovered over the handle in a momentary pause and his cold stare lifted over his shoulder. "When have you known Tommy not to be." Aurora replied in response, her eyes firmly planted on Grace with a evident frown pinching her brows that Tommy didn't doubt was aimed solely towards him.

So for that reason, Tommy let out a tired sigh and turned towards the door, opening it up to welcome in an adrenaline-fuelled, panting, bleeding, mess of a man Arthur was inhabiting as he dunked multiple satchels of considerable profit by Tommy's feet. "We chased the Lees across the track and down to Devon road. We got every penny back." Arthur reported with a lazy grin splattered against his battered face.

While Tommy hunched over on his knees to search through the contents, Arthur looked over to his left and spotted the rumored beauty John had not stopped boasting on about ever since he had joined them on the battlefront, and suddenly his grin raised even wider. "Alright Aurora? John weren't lying when he said you were looking like a picture." He complimented with his crazed animal eyes running up and down her in her yellow dressed glory.

Tutting her lips like a mother would do disciplining her child, Aurora crossed the remaining gap between them and swiped up the handkerchief sitting idly by in his pocket before she attempted at ridding some of the red paint canvased on his face. "You have enough blood on your face, to look like you've committed a murder." She chided, busy hands inspecting the new litter of abrasions on her patients' face, like that of any good doctor.

"Wonder how that happened." Arthur humored, earning him a rather deadpan gaze from Aurora as her hands went slack on his face and she stuffed the bloodied rag back in his pocket. Spotting the other blonde over Aurora's shoulder, Arthur nodded in greeting with another sly grin gracing his slightly better looking face. "Nice dress. You can wear that to my pub." Grace's confusion doubling down to even further depths as her eyes jumped from person to person with a flurry of questions she was bursting to ask despite the concrete knowledge that she was most certainly not going to get any answers.

However, while her mouth began to open and close like some kind of fish stuck on dry land, Tommy stood back up straight as his arms hauled up the many bags upon bags of money onto his shoulders, alongside the weight of the world he always carried along with him. "Buy the boys a drink. Anyone hurt?"

Gesturing a dismissive wave of his hand up to his face, Arthur shrugged off his response. "Nah. A few cuts and bruises."

Nodding his head, Tommy looked towards Aurora, as she finally met his gaze, with unspoken orders ringing loud and clear for her, and only her, to hear. Much like she owned the powers to read such thoughts, she sent him a well-acted smile, her pearly whites glistening with a cherriness and flattery that somehow showed off more venom than any glare she could muster.

"Off we go, ladies." His free arm already moving around Aurora's waist as he once again careened through the swarms of people, some being more forcibly removed out of his path than others. When they passed by the bar, Grace took one cautious glance to her right before veering off to the side, half expecting, half hoping that Aurora would be off to her own corner of the bar. But sadly enough, Aurora remained situated by Tommy's side, even having earned his arm protectively wrapped around her body as they moved towards the table Tommy aimed his business ventures towards.

Tommy dumped the cash down onto Billy Kimber's spotless white table with such an abruptness and lack of care that a mountain of the pennies so high mounted the space set out before them in such a dramatic fashion he actually rendered all viewing parties speechless. "Your money, Mr Kimber. Rescued from the Lee Brothers. And returned to you with a request for a fair hearing." Tommy announced, happily pulling himself out a chair for him and Aurora both as he took her hand and charmingly deposited Aurora into one of them. "Your own protection is failing Mr Kimber."

"Your men are taking cuts." Aurora boldly spoke, that being quite apparent by the stares she seemed to immediately attract at the first sound she made as she opened her mouth. "Some extra pounds thrown their way every now and again in exchange for a blind eye." She added, staring defiantly into the hellmouth with no ounce of fear.

"It's for that reason-" Tommy started, Aurora's eye catching the move he was about to make towards his metal case of cigarettes and quickly intercepted him before he had the chance. Her body leaning in closer as she let one of her hands slide across his chest and into the pocket she knew they would be in. His eyes briefly flicking down towards her as she pulled a single one free and deposited it in the corner of his mouth without a word. "that I want to suggest, from now on you contract out your racetrack security to the Peaky Blinders." He continued fluidly, as if Aurora's actions were his normality. As if, his power captivated women even as will-bending as the woman beside him to strike his own fags for him.

"We would be saving you a lot of money, Mr Kimber. A lot of money." His arrogance and confidence being set alight through his own words, much like the bright orange lick of a flame that blared in front of him as Aurora leaned impossibly closer and scorched the tip of the stick still perched in his lips. "In return you give us, five percent of the take, and three legal betting pitches at every race meeting, North of the River Seven. Rising to six after one year if we are all satisfied with the service."

Resting back in her seat, Tommy seemed to be following in her lead as his arm came to sit on the back of her chair in a less than sly act of possession Aurora was more than willing to concede in when it came to the leeching stare she was earning from Kimber throughout her entire performance. "What do you say, Mr Kimber? Does this offer please you?" She prodded with that same tinge of sweet seduction laced into her words that felt like poison coating her tongue as she directed them towards him.

Bathing in the silence for a moment, in what Aurora could only describe as a feeble attempt to regain some semblance of power he believed he owned, Kimber exchanged one small look with his account and then returned his attention back on the patiently waiting couple. "I say you talk business with my accountant. I want to dance." His eyes predictably finding Aurora's as he stood from his chair that sat so ironically beside his wife's. Walking away from her and to the spot in front of Aurora, he presented her with his soft little hand. "Shall we?"

The feeling of Tommy's warm calloused hand coming to run underneath her blonde hair and take his spot on the soft sensitive nape of her neck, momentarily sent shivers down all the way to the tips of her toes and left her mind blank. But, as quick as it flooded her she forced it away from her subconscious and played along as she delicately placed her hand onto Tommy's thigh and flashed Kimber a pleasant smile. "I'm afraid these shoes aren't as suitable for standing, never mind dancing, as I once thought. Perhaps you should ask our friend if she would be so inclined." Her head motioning over to the blonde quite obviously spectating their meeting. She, of course, immediately catching Kimber's simpleton mind as he ignored the rejection and went straight in for his next catch.

As soon as Kimber's footsteps had receded, Aurora noticeably removed her warm touch away from Tommy's thigh, his eyes snapping to the side of her resolute head as she expectantly awaited for a response to the accountant shuffling his papers. "How many men can you put in the field at one time?" He asked with a narrowed stare, the mask of a true negotiator coming over his proper academic face.

"There's a lot of men out of work at the moment. Two guards for every bookie." Tommy briskly replied, his eyes meeting the man's for only a moment, before he went back to staring at her despite her refusing acknowledgement.

"At every meeting?"

Tommy nodded along to his words, taking another drag out of his cigarette, then stubbing it out in the expensive crystal tray that was only there to hold his ashes. "We have contacts with good people among the Gypsies. We'll always know when the Lees plan to attack. With all the strikes and troubles, you can't really depend on the police. Anyway we're more honest." He stated with the hint of a smirk staining his words, that even managed to lift a humored glint into Aurora's brooding stare.

Leaning forward in her chair, one of Aurora's elbows came to rest on the table as her other hand came to the frame of Roberts' dainty glasses, fingers feathering over the metal in a hypnotic movement that left the man holding his breath. "Trust in the devil you know, is that not how the saying goes?" Her silky tone wrapping tighter and tighter around the poor man's mind until she could figuratively see all those intelligent mannerisms he clung so tightly to slip away from his grasp and into Aurora's clutches.

Blinking profusely, Roberts nudged up his glasses with the back of his hand, unable to sort out what exactly he was supposed to be doing with his body and where exactly he was supposed to be directing his gaze, given that slightly fear-imposing cold blank stare he was earning from the demon lurking behind her shoulder. "I w-well-" He stuttered, her angelic smile uplifting to even more mesmerising levels.

"Looks like you two are making a deal." Billy Kimber's nasally voice rescuing Roberts from the further torture as Aurora settled back into her chair, with the Birmingham's man's arm firmly hooked around the back.

Clearing his clogged throat, Roberts moved back to his shuffling papers, neatly stacking and sorting them. "We're making progress." He answered back with his regained academic prowess and negotiator's mask of indifference.

Kimber nodded his head along as if he gave a single fuck to what his advisor had to say, though quickly turned his beady attentions onto Tommy and the beauty by his side. "Then let me throw a small condition into the mix." He spoke with the false courtesy of a true businessman, eyes latching onto Aurora with such unoriginal thoughts that nearly had her rolling her eyes at it all. "From what I've seen today, you seem to have your hands full with all these beautiful women. I'd like to take one of them off you for a short while."

That familiar touch came back to the side of Aurora's feverish neck then, her blinding silent rage burning in her retinas at being the prized goose the pathetic excuse of a man so callously believed he could pluck. Tommy's thumb coming up to graze the side of her jaw in a calming swipe as he redirected her stare away from Kimber and towards his cold as ice gaze, the colour in itself cooling her rising fever she was sure he could feel rising up on her skin. "I'm afraid Aurora here, is not available for any sort of transaction." Tommy spoke in reply, his eyes not removing themselves from her as his hand travelled higher up the curves of her flushed cheek and his thumb stroked her strong apple cheekbones. "Ain't that right, love?"

Teeth digging down into the insides of her gums, Aurora forced down the insistent smile she wished to let loose and instead nodded her head in response. She turned her head back towards the agitated little man, enjoying every moment of the sensation of Tommy's hands travelling over her skin and the green-eyed monster it was invoking to rise up in Billy. "Turns out to be that way, Mr Kimber."

Ticking his head off to the side, Tommy brushed off his affectionate display and retreated back into that emotionless demeanor he so ruled. "Grace on the other hand." That brief spark of relief Aurora had been feeling burning away into a dull dread, with past traumas clawing its way into her conscious concocting pity and disgust to rid away any other conflicting emotions she had thought she would have felt when scenarios were merely hypothetical.

Oblivious to her inner turmoil, Kimber's lips quirked up into a sinister greedy smile. "Right then, I'll have her. Two hours without any interruptions. I have a house just up the road from 'ere. Does that sound reasonable with everyone?" Words being negotiated in the same manner with that of any other business trade with such a familiarity that the toxic burn of bile seemed to be rising in Aurora's throat, choking up all the words she hoped she could spit at Kimber's feet.

Standing up from his chair, Tommy marched over to the bar without a word or murmur of acknowledgement to any of the remaining spectators left waiting at the table. "You sure you don't want to join us sweetheart?" His arrogant spells falling short on the stoic blonde, her normal show of false flattery not having the strength to reappear with such a man. "My house is surely bigger than that Gypsies' entire street." He bragged with the obvious showing tells of new money, that had the born and bred rich girl quirking an eyebrow in mocking judgement, like that of many of the passive aggressive socialites looking down on those below her.

"As tempting as that offer is Mr Kimber, I must say that my heart beats only for one." The judgement and dismissal of his character being clearer then she probably should have let on given the havoc he could easily wreck on her life if that flicker of recognition suddenly sparked inside him.

Though, like the impeccable man that he was, he dumbly shrugged his shoulders in a short bristle before puffing out his chest and striding over to claim his prize. "Suit yourself then." He mumbled under his breath. Aurora watching over her shoulder as he goes and takes Grace's hand in his own and leads her away back up the grand staircase and away from sight, the only thing left in their path being the solitary Tommy Shelby lighting yet another cigarette. The fire and smog hopefully having the power to set aflame both their long list of sins Aurora and Tommy had tattooed across their skin.

_A wishful fantasy Aurora thought, meant only for fools._   
  
  


~ ~ ~  
  
  
  


Stuck in a loop of inner turmoil and disgust at herself, Aurora quickly abandoned that white clothed table and retreated back to the comforts of the bar and the bliss the warmth forgetfulness a tall glass of gin could provide her. Not even the laughable societal rules of a lady drinking by herself being deemed as improper could stop the barman from quivering under her blazing glare and pouring her her drink.

The sweet tangy liquid barely had a chance to touch her lips before he was appearing by her side once again, his body leaning against the counter in a way in which was angled only towards her, leaving her in the inescapable clutches of his icy stare. Defying to give in to his overwhelming presence, Aurora didn't abstain from the evident roll of her eyes as her tongue and throat washed away her retorts with the sinful waters.

"Dance with me." His hand being held out for her to take with all the temptations of Adam and Eve fighting the urge to resist the sweet nectars of the forbidden fruit. That spark in his alluring stare, the quirk in the corner of his pillowed plush lips, the three piece immaculate suit that embraced finery and power remarkably strong for that of a young Birmingham lad who grew up with no shoes on his feet. It was all enough for a true saint to forego their promises in return for a night of heavenly bliss.

Yet stubbornness and fractured hearts taint responses such as hers. "I've had enough with dancing today, thank you." She responds politely, the rich girl tutelage still shining through causing a smile to briefly be shown on display from Tommy.

"It wasn't a request." He cooly retorts, his body being pushed up into a straight standing position as he takes one more invasive step closer into her personal space.

Still refusing to meet his gaze, Aurora finishes off her glass with one powerful tilt of her head, a single drop escaping out the corner of her lips that her thumb came up to catch before it could roll down her chin. Her mouth quickly lapping up the single drop from her thumb before she rolled her head on her shoulder to meet his intense gaze, noting the fuels of desire and lust hidden behind his eyes as he remained fixed on her lips. "It never is with you." Her hand sliding into his, and taking charge of his momentary dive into his own mind by being the one to lead them back into the dance floor, his figure trailing behind her by their conjoined hands.

Regaining his need for control, Tommy pulled them to an abrupt stop, her feet twirling her around and skillfully catching herself in graceful steps before she could stumble into his chest. In a fluid motion, his hand came to encompass her waist and wrapped her in a tight hold as her fingers came to clutch onto his shoulder, their connected touch interlocking and molding together as one while the soft melodies of the slow music drifted through the air. Slow measured steps guiding them across the room in a dreamy sequence of peace and stillness that heavily contrasted the brutal and harsh acts unfolding outside of their little bubble around them.

Tommy's eyes refused to look away from her despite his role of leading this dance of theirs, his mind, body and soul drinking up the indisputable beauty being held within his arms, hands splayed across her back with the adoration for this dress she so respectfully adorned. Appreciation, not only for it shined in beauty, but also for the grateful sensation of how he still managed to sense the warmth her skin from the thin material of it all. "You're not wearing red." His deep hoarse voice broke out, words only just above a whisper that managed to attract her ocean blue eyes to him. "Never seen you in a colour that wasn't red."

"I knew it was his favourite."

Nodding his head along to her words, Tommy remembered the exact words he had said to Grace that had made her rustle up that ruby red dress she was so proudly wearing the entire day, a hint of regret leaking into his consciousness that he made quick efforts to ignore. "It's yours as well I take it."

A deep pensive frown took over her features at his words, her eyes going back to cast over his shoulder with a cloudy distance blocking Tommy's entry. "I find it quite convenient for the life I've chosen, is all."

Hand flexing tighter on her waist, pressing their bodies even closer together than what the rules and regulations firmly dictate, Aurora was forced to return her gaze back towards him. "And what life is that?" He asked with all naivety of a simple civilian, like he wasn't also entangled in the daily madness that has plagued their lives and wrote their destinies.

"One where blood flows in rivers, and I find myself drowning in it." She so eloquently spoke, it almost having the capability to distract Tommy from the sad and distressed sentiment that her words truly meant. "This way as long as I wear red, I won't have to worry about the stains." A bitter smile coming across her face as her eyes return back over his shoulder, refusing to watch his reaction.

"Maybe I should adopt the same principle then." He responded, his words coming off his tongue with a certain edge of dark ironic humor, that shouldn't have offered her any sort of laughter, any sort of relief from the truth of the matter, but it did. Her soft quiet chuckles, escaping her mouth and mixing in with the forgotten background noise in some sort of sweet symphony that had Tommy fighting back his smile.

Shaking her head, Aurora willingly met Tommy's eyes, searching behind his simple gaze with all the intentions of uprooting his darkest truths that he held so firmly against his chest, but he didn't cower away. Of course, he didn't cower away because Tommy Shelby never cowers, never shows fear of death or fear itself, he just exists in a perpetual state of being. And, Aurora couldn't stop herself from falling in his grasps, from allowing his freezing temperatures to cool her fiery tendencies with all the power of one complicated touch of his fingers on her skin.

"You needn't worry about the stains that are to come, Tommy. Your mind is still trapped on the ones that have already happened." 

There was a brief moment of doubt, perhaps regret, that washed over her then as she allowed herself to let her words come to fruition, allowed her inner thoughts of the man that always held up his guarded front to be heard by the man himself. Unsure, of the response he was going to take when it came to his non-disclosed past. "Then perhaps, I need to find someone to set me free." He instead so shockingly replied, allowing a moment of honesty, a moment of rare frightening propositions that had Aurora's steady heartbeat thumping harsher and in a higher speed of succession that she began to wonder if he would be able to feel it pound against his chest sooner or later.

"Is that what you want?" Her voice surprising her with it's retained ability to remain steady and calm, even in the face of what she could only describe as one of her greatest fears. "For someone to set you free?"

"I want a great many things." He answered without missing a beat, without letting her truly take in a breath that her lungs were so fighting for.

"I know. I saw it in your eyes the first time we met." Her voice so soft, so quiet as their breaths mingled together from the not-so-sudden closeness Aurora was fighting in becoming even closer, scared for the inevitable repercussions ske knew that would follow.

Not holding the same mindset, Tommy's fingers trailed up her spine in an action that caused small miniscule bumps to raise of the skin of her arms, reaching the ends of her soft waves, his fingers toyed the strands of her hair with utter content, something he had to yet to feel in so many years. "And what do you see now?" The action to just turn her head to the right and lean further on her toes the only movement needed before they would be touching, in such an intimate sense, that it caused the chills to rack through her blood as well.

But instead, Aurora moved her face back over to dwindling members of the ballroom, disappointing not only herself in this cruel act of avoidance and cold fronts. "I'm no longer sure." She muttered, usual strong and meaningful statements that hold little to naught room for doubt or fragility being nowhere to be seen in that raw vulnerability Tommy had managed to force out of her.

Ticking his head to the side, Tommy returned all forms of his detached blank state, following in her stead and moving his gaze over to the crowds. "You hold many secrets, Aurora. Many secrets I wish I held the answers to. But for all that deception and mystery, you're not very skilled at lying."

Detangling herself out of his grip, Aurora wore a polite smile that didn't do much to reflect their conversation and regarded Tommy in such a way it would have made him believe they were merely strangers once again. "Thank you for the dance, but it seems to me we must surely be nearing that two hour mark soon. I'll be waiting in the car." Her heeled feet already spinning her around in her steps with little to no regard for any response he might give, because Aurora did what Aurora has grown best at; she fled.  
  
  


~ ~ ~  
  
  


The journey up to Billy Kimber's manor in actuality was a very short ride, most likely having only lasted one of Charlie Chaplin's short escapades on film, but, when you happened to find yourself stuck within the steely confines of a shiny black motor vehicle alongside a deathly silent Thomas Shelby, time seemed to stretch out into a cruel endless spiel. Couple the tense and awkward atmospheres with guilt and painful memories then you would happen to find yourself in the same predicament as Aurora found herself in.

Helplessness was beginning to take its effect as Aurora's teeth started gnawing into her bottom lip, stopping only when she began to feel that familiar metallic substance leak into her mouth and stain her tongue an unhealthy shade of red. Idle hands itching at her side, Aurora spied out the car's front screen and to the arrogant show of a house that laid just beyond her reach, her eyes momentarily flicking over to an equally fidgeting Tommy despite his efforts on keeping his ticks subtle. "It wasn't right." Her abrupt halt to their mutually agreed upon silence quickly earning his attention as his head snapped over to her. "Selling her the way you did."

"I didn't see you jumping in to take her place." Tommy muttered, with a harsh enough glare directed in her direction despite the air of indifference his tone of voice held. More and more attempts of maintaining that stifling act of pretending that nothing can reach his cold dead heart, the routine was all beginning to become quite tiresome for Aurora to have to deal with.

"I've been Grace before, you know." She spat back, repressed emotions bubbling to the surface through toxic smiles and tragic undertones. "Exchanged, bartered, treated as nothing more than a shiny penny for men to leer at, to grab at...to _fuck_ , how they please." White burning knuckles threatening to tear out holes in her elegant dress from the fierce grip she held onto it in order to hold back the pitiful wave of humanity threatening to drown her in her own tears. "There's nothing that can describe it, and nothing that can stop it. If you so choose."

"Are you asking me to choose?" He asked, in that same aire of control and impassiveness. Though, Aurora was quick to pick up on the softened sheen hidden behind the layers of nothingness as he stared back at her like she was some sort of wounded bird. Like if she felt so inclined, she couldn't simply just reach up under her dress and to the gun strapped to her skin and place a bullet right into his battered and broken heart within the span of one single baited breath. 

"I'm not asking anything from you, Tommy. I'm well aware of the man you are, and the morales you so expertly hide behind those blank vacant stares." Turning her head away from him and to the road in front, Aurora calmed the heavy tensions riddling her mind and sat stoically in all her regal poise. "Act upon them, or don't. You're the man who makes all the choices around here."

They were sat in silence again after that, Aurora remaining in her impassive straight forward gaze while Tommy stared at her side profile with only a heavy clenched jaw and his maintained blank face. The sounds of birds chirping to one another in the trees, the late winter winds rustling the leaves, the small consistent taps of Aurora's heels clicking against the floor and the turning clogs of Tommy's mind being the only noise invading their enclosed space. Then, with a mumbled string of curses under his breath, Tommy yanked his car door open and stomped out the car, his storming strides up towards the house coming into Aurora's eye line at last, and earning a small gentle smile to flatter her lips. 

It didn't take too long for Grace to come scampering out the manor with a pinched expression and arms crossed tightly over her chest, her appearance offering Aurora some relief as she skimmed over her only minimally disrupted attire. Tommy's figure was trailing behind her with a cigarette predictably already lodged between his lips and his hands casually thrown into the pockets of his vest coat. Grace had clambered into the back without even the shortest of greetings, already glaring at the seat Tommy was taking his time at claiming beside Aurora. 

And when he finally did meander into his side, Grace didn't waste a second of their journey to be spent in a peaceful tranquility. "At the start of the day, I was Lady Sarah of Connemara. By the end, I was a whore with the clap. You're a fucking bastard offering me like that." Grace fumed as Aurora flicked her eyes over to Tommy with humor shining in her eyes, despite his ignoring efforts. "But then you changed your mind. Why did you change your mind Thomas?"

One hand bringing up the dwindling cigarette still in his hand to his mouth, Tommy took a rather dramatic pull of it, leaving the women to stew in anticipation for whatever fascinating notion he was going to come back with. "Choices. I'm the man around here, who makes all the choices."   
  
  


~ ~ ~  
  
  


After yet another car journey made excruciatingly long by the curse of awkward silences, the image of Small Heath coming back onto their horizons provided a thankful reprieve by all guests in the vehicle despite the dull and dreary landscapes it casted over their sights. Their first stop had been back to the Garrison, where Grace hadn't stalled in jumping from the car once Tommy had slowed into a halt. However, bitter tastes of Tommy's belittling actions evidently had been long forgotten by the barmaid, as it didn't stop a fluttery smile and a soft farewell from being directed in his direction all the same. 

Turning down the familiar street of Watery Lane, the rumbling engine cut to a halt as the quiet pair watched the dark shadows envelop the purple and orange ambers of dusk being chased away by the night. "She seemed to forgive you easily enough?" Aurora mused, with a sly smirk quirking up on her lips, turning her head to watch the side of Tommy's unreadable features as she was sure his mind was currently running with future schemes and dreams. 

Tommy distractedly nodded his head along. "Yep." His lips smacking together, face moving to side to meet her piercing gaze with an almost vivid violet half moon painted under his eyes. "What about you? Do I earn your forgiveness?" He spoke tiredly, voice lacking the usual muster he so usually portrayed. 

Leaning her head back on the cushioned seat, Aurora allowed their mutual exhaustion to take over its effects, background colours beginning to fade into nothingness, until the only light source she could see was two blue spotlights casting onto her. "I don't see you as a man for apologies." A delicate hand being outstretched wordlessly as she watched him dig up a cigarette from his jacket pocket, setting it alight with a practiced flick.

"Oh, I'm not." He replied, slotting the cigarette in between her nimble fingers, shamelessly following her movements as she brings it up to her lips for a strong intake, clouds of smoke dancing out of her mouth in a small spectacle. "And I'm not apologising now either. What I said still stands."

With a smile on her lips, Aurora lifted one of her legs to cross over the other as she moved her eyes away from Tommy and preoccupied herself with unclipping her painfully constricting heels with her free hand. "Good." A small, almost inaudible, sigh of relief being released as her freed toes slip out of the shoe and wiggle about. Her gaze falling back to Tommy and his unfaltering stare. "I would probably respect you a little less if all it took for Tommy Shelby to back down from his word would be a few sullen looks and upturned shoulders."

Tired eyes igniting with a new sense of humor, Tommy slumped casually against the door of the car, motioning his hand towards him as she lifted her other leg. "Is that what you've been doing all day?" He teased, one hand sliding up her feet to take hold of the smooth skin around her ankles while the other busied itself with slowly undoing her other shoe. "Eh? Sullen looks and upturned shoulders." A crack of a half grin brightening his dazed features behind the next poof of smoke filling up the small quarters. 

"No." She refused, her thoughts becoming tangled in one another upon the sensation of his warm touch gingerly trailing around her worn foot laying in his lap. "You don't hold any control over the way in which I act." She retorted, in a lame attempt at retaining some modicum of dignity she felt as if she was progressively losing against his every touch. 

"That right?" His left eyebrow cocking upwards while his hands pulled off her shoe in a painfully drawn out way that nearly had Aurora's chest rising and falling in quicker breaths because of it all. It somehow being very clear to Tommy the effects he had on her given that audacious smirk tickling the corner of his lips. "You know, I didn't ask you if you enjoyed yourself today, before all that Kimber mess." He added, as Aurora calmly retracted her foot from his lap and straightened up into her prim and proper posture. "John treat you well?"

Reaching up to her hair to remove the invisible pins tacking each strand of her hair in it's perfect position, Aurora ran a hand through her tousled waves. "Like a true gentlemen."

Entranced by the image in front of him, of the bright eyed beauty sitting up straight in his car with bare feet and gleaming drapes, Tommy ticked his head to the side with a click of his tongue. "Good. That's good." He murmured in that tone of voice that felt like a hand gripping a tight vice around her neck, his calloused touch reaching forward to the loose strap of her dress that rebelled its position on her shoulder and began slipping down her arm, lightly taking ahold of it and placing it back in it's slot. His thumb resting there for a moment, running the fabric through his fingers back and forth as he let his eye roam over the length of it all one more time. "You should wear red less. Stains aren't cause enough to punish the rest of us from not being able to see you in dresses like that."

Like magnets attached to one another, Aurora found herself subdued into his close orbit for what felt like the thousandth time that day. "Is that an order Mr. Shelby?" Her words only a fragile whisper, that managed to pierce Tommy's soul and set every single one of his nerve endings in an electrifying delight. 

"Yes." He breathed out. "That's an order."

Holding her heels in one hand, Aurora grabbed onto the handle of the door and pushed it down until the resounding click of it opening managed to break through into the heavy atmosphere. "Very well." That damned devilish smirk flashing in the night air as she hopped out of her seat and onto the cold cobbled floor. "Goodnight Tommy." She chirped, walking backwards a couple steps before spinning around on her feet and disappearing through her cherry coloured door. 

Trained eyes on the spot she once held, Tommy guided his hand back to his keys and switched on the rumbling ignition. "Goodnight Aurora."  
  
  


~ ~ ~  
  
  



	9. Soldiers in France

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Car bombs and a vase of roses

She had tried. Truly, she had. Despite the probable mountains upon mountains of evidence that would suggest otherwise, Aurora, really had tried to not fall into the devastating clutches that was affection and sentiment and all that falls beneath it. When, Polly Gray had turned up on her doorstep all those years ago, a lit cigarette in one hand and a scrutinising stare scanning her figure up and down, she had tried to politely decline her stubborn insistences for afternoon teas and morning walks as often as she could. However, as she has grown to learn after all this time, Polly Gray truly was a formidable woman, and nothing short of a miracle could sway her from getting what she wants.

An apparent family trait.

So, eventually, that deep burning feeling settled at the pit of her stomach, that nagging indication that those three sleeping bodies living just across the beaten path to her door had managed to sneak their way over the barricades and past the guard dogs to the ultimate goal of her fragile heart. Although, she had admitted defeat when it came to those certain individuals, she was completely and utterly frigid on letting anyone else through her fortified defences.

Then, those three Shelby brothers came swooping in.

Proud peaky hats on display, guns wafting about in the air, wide troublesome grins on at least two-thirds of their faces, it was enough for all the cement in the world to crumble beneath their feet. And maybe, just maybe, she could consider the rather ridiculous notion that one certain individual was entering further past her limits and into the dangerous territory of, no mans land. Laying waste to the battered and broken pasts that threaten to hold him back, with his devastatingly blue eyes, strategic mind and those high strung cheekbones that could cut just as deep as the blade stitched into his cap.

There was seemingly no turning back from her no doubt regret worthy mistakes, the only thing left for her to do was embrace whatever little time she had left until the inevitable comes and burns it all to the ground.

"Finn!" Aurora exclaimed, heels clicking against the ground in hurried messy steps, as she attempts at jumping and skipping over mislaid cobbles and broken etchings of coal and rubble littering the ground. No control over the worrying speed she was travelling at due to insistent, small, surprisingly strong, hand tugging her along the entire way despite all pleas she had thrown his way for a little mercy. "Where are you taking me?"

Rudely pushing past stragglers on the path, that Aurora was forced to toss an apology to over her shoulder after each unceremonious bump, Finn continued on his adventure. "Come on, Rory!" He whined, using that unfair childish little pout of his that he knew held all the manipulations over Aurora's otherwise stubborn character. "You're always busy with me brothers. I just want to play with you, like we used to when I was little." 

Letting out a bewildered chuckle, Aurora tugged Finn back into a slightly more manageable walking speed. "You're only eleven." She countered, watching on in amusement as he mimicked that infamous Shelby roll of his eyes in response. "Stop talking as if you're some weathered old man." She teased with a wide grin. 

Dropping his hold of her hand, Finn crossed his arms over his puffed out chest, and raised his chin high up to the sky from under his bold peaky hat. "I'll be a man soon enough." He argued back. 

Cocking a single eyebrow up in response, Aurora looked down at his adorably small height with a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips that she very much tried not to let show. "Oh yeah? And who told you that?" She responded, following on after his little stature as he ran a couple steps in front, rounding a bend down a street to god knows where. 

"Tommy did." He answered back simply, because of course he did. Of course it had to be Tommy that would sprout some probably half-arsed lecture about how Finn needed to go about learning the family business soon enough. Children rarely do get to have a place in this world of theirs, all things considered, Finn is probably lucky enough that he has made it this far with that youthful innocence still shining in his little cheeks. 

Huffing out an indigent sigh, Aurora called after Finn's hopping body as he bounced between the uneven stones. "And everything Tommy says is the truth?" 

Spinning his head around with furrowed brows, Finn was staring back at her as if she had miraculously grown a second head in the span of five seconds. "Course it is." He replied matter of factly, stopping still as he waited for her slow steps to catch up. 

Rolling her eyes, Aurora fished out a cigarette from the pristine silver sleek carrier out of her coat pocket. "Right, of course it is." She muttered in between her nimble fingers setting alight the match and welcoming in that burst of warm embrace the smoke afforded her, whacking away Finn's sneaky hands from trying to steal her precious cargo. "You still haven't told me where you're dragging me off to?" She asked again, reigniting that childish excitement to reappear on his youthful face as he once again grabbed a hold of her free hand to drag her through the streets.

Luckily for Aurora's sanity, this journey was much less tiresome than before, as Finn was pulling them to a halt in the familiar surroundings of the Shelby-owned garage in less than a few metres of them setting off again. "'ere we are." He announced with a proud gleam while the pair looked on at the staple family motor vehicle sitting before them. 

"What are we doing here, Finn?" Eyes swapping back and forth between the companion by her side and the engine in front. "This is Tommy's car." She added, raising her hand to point at it, with silent pleas that he wasn't trying to trick her into taking him on some sort of joyride round the city in his brother's hotwired car. Only knowing that if he asked her for it with those angelic puppy dog eyes of his, and that adorable pout that comes alongside it, there was no will power strong enough within her that could resist that sort of temptation. 

"We're playing." He giggled, running forward and rather violently throwing himself on the roof of the car, until he was standing on its hood and carefully tiptoeing towards the front opening where the wheel resided. 

Throwing her head back with her hands planted firmly on her hips, Aurora truly had to question what it was about all these Shelby boys that they insisted on testing her to her wits end at almost every waking moment. "If you get scratches all over that paint, you'll never make it to twelve." She warned, the strongest motherly glare she could muster being conjured up and thrown his way. 

Weaseling his body through the gap, Finn plopped himself down on the cushioned chair with a giddy smile, sliding across the seat until he could manage the short task of reaching the wheel with two hands. "Come on, Rory." He beckoned over with a tilt of his head. "Get in, will ya?" He commanded, in what was probably his best imitation of his lovely older brothers and their endless bounds of gentlemanly behaviour. 

Stunned for a second in utter disbelief, Aurora shook her head with a scoff as she stomped over towards the car door with all the intentions of whacking those prime examples they had set in his head right out of it. "You sure do have the manners of a bloody Shelby." She mumbled under her breath, while one of her hands came up from her side to skim the handle on the door frame. 

However, in some sort of twisted divine intervention, Tommy Shelby came rounding around the corner in fast hurried strides, wild eyes flicking between the pair holding such a rare and twisted reflection of fear that it momentarily had Aurora frozen in her steps. "Finn. Finn stay exactly where you are." He warned in a deathly dark tone, his intense gaze zeroing in on Aurora's twisted brow as he called her over to him with a quick flick of his hand. "Aurora, I need you to come to me now." He ordered, with a certain shakiness rattling his voice. 

Dropping her hand away from the handle, Aurora crossed the space between them until she was within reaching distance that Tommy was able to grab onto her forearm and pull her the rest of the way and send her stumbling into his chest, his unrelenting gaze still resting on the passenger within the confines of the car. "Tommy what's-" 

Without giving her a chance to finish her coherent thought, Tommy snapped his attention towards her with a vice like grip tightening around her shoulders, rooting her to her spot in a stunned silence. "Stay here, alright." His ice blue eyes boring into hers, imploring her to agree with a certain sliver of desperation that Aurora thought she would never witness when its comes to the prideful stubbornness he wore on an almost constant daily basis. Absentmindedly, as if she was in some sort of trance, Aurora gave him a faint nod of her head, his grip then going slack around her as he stepped away and moved closer to Finn waiting curiously in the driver's seat. 

"I was pretending I was you." Finn chirply spoke, clearly not quite picking up on the tense atmosphere that was threatening to swallow Aurora whole and drag her into the depths of an anxiety-ridden whirlpool. 

Stalking closer to the car as if it were a wild horse Tommy was attempting to calm, he pointed to either side of the vehicle with jittery fingers and tightly wound shoulders. "Which door did you open to come in Finn?" He asked next, scanning the area with the utmost scrutiny as Aurora tempted on following suit, trying and failing to spot the mysterious threat apparently hidden under her careless watch. 

"I didn't, I climbed in."

Nodding gravely, Tommy's eyes come over his shoulder for a moment to meet Aurora's searching gaze, speaking in silent sentences that had her bracing in her place for the terror that she was preparing to jump out at any moment. "I want you to climb out exactly the same way you climbed in, okay?" He instructed. Though, it appeared that Finn was still blissfully unaware of the deadly stakes inserting into his happy game and with a giggle leapt out of his brother's reach and swung open the door on his left. "No, Finn!" Tommy exclaimed, as Aurora moved on instinct and sped after the young boy and wrapped him in her protective embrace. "Clear!" She heard him yell, before suddenly two strong arms wrapped around her, holding her and the young boy firmly against his chest with their heads bowed down together. 

A fiery explosion erupted behind them, sending the yells of men and an implode of heat to entangle itself in the otherwise quiet air. Aurora could feel Tommy's hot deep breaths coming out in ragged patterns and brushing the hair back from her neck, as two familiar calloused hands slowly unlatched themselves away from their hold over her body with extreme hesitance that it had her prepping for yet another surprise attack to implode at any moment. But, it never came, so at incredibly cautious speeds, the trio released each other and stumbled over to the opening to take witness on the wreckage that had just been laid waste to. 

Tommy fell down to one knee in front Finn, twisting the young boy's frame around until he was facing him with heavy hands resting on his arms. "That's why you should never pretend to be me, okay?" He warned, large traces of those unguarded emotions leaking out into his voice with the slight cracks to his words. Leaning his forehead until it touched Finn's, Tommy closed his exhausted eyes for a momentary pause, before his resounding mask fell over his face once more and he lifted from their brotherly embrace. "Good. Now head straight back home, no runabouts, alright?" 

Clambering back onto two feet, he gave Finn a gentle push on the back of his head and sent him on his way, then went stumbling on swaying legs over to Aurora still watching the busying men recovering from the surprise assault. "And you? You okay?" His grave words snapping her out of her dream-like state, while his hands lifted from his sides to try and find a place on the soft curves of her face. 

Catching his wrists before they could make contact with her skin, Aurora's once worried sheen shining in her eyes rapidly shifted to that of a festering anger boiling to the surface. "What the fuck was that?!" She spat, using her hold on his wrists to push him back a pitiful distance as his feet skillfully caught himself from succumbing to her force. "We were almost just blown half to hell!"

Huffing out a tired sigh, Tommy managed to have an expression that actually had the audacity to look like he was growing frustrated by her overly loud exclamations, like he was disappointed by her lack of stability from such a futile thing as this. "I know, I know, alright." He conceded, inching further forward with two hands out wide in a show of surrender that almost had Aurora itching for another bomb to detonate by his feet. "It was just a counter attack from the Lees. It's all over now." He so simply put it with all the sanity of a raving loon on a full moon. 

Spinning on her heels, away from his placidly calm face, Aurora scoffed. "Christ Tommy." She muttered, wandering a few steps further until she was sure she had put herself at a safe distance between them that would hopefully stop herself from impulsively lunging towards him with a tightly clenched fist. "Was this all apart of your plan?" She mocked, turning back around in her strides to face him with some sort of sardonic half-smile coating her lips like the venom of a snake rolling off of its pointed teeth.

His face scrunched up then, eyes crinkling at the corners, mouth opened slightly and his head cocked to the side, as if the sudden explosion had managed to blow one of his ear drums and leave him deaf. His feet having to close the newly opened distance between them like that would help in his inability to comprehend what she had just asked him in all seriousness. "D'you mean to have my little brother blown to bits? No Aurora, it wasn't apart of any fucking plan." He cursed, that itching feeling clawing his throat and urging his hands to find the cigarette hidden in his pockets. 

Watching the flames burn from the tip of the stick hanging loosely from his mouth, Aurora forced her matching embers festering inside to cool off into nothing more than a blank impatience reflecting on her face. Not quite in the mood to stretch out this pleasant interaction of theirs into anything longer than it needed to, especially when he was wearing that stupid face of his. "So what are you going to do about it?" She asked expectantly, staring at the side of his clenched jaw as the taut muscles flex and bob underneath his skin in an annoyingly mesmerising pattern that she had to deliberately force herself to look away, hoping to dear god that he hadn't felt her eyes unsubtly fixed on him. He did. 

Leaving a baited breath between them for the space of an agonisingly long intake of smoke to infiltrate his system, Tommy stared off into the distance with all the dramatics of one of the film stars in Ada's favourite flicks. "I have an idea." He replied with his much preferred tongue of vague riddled answers that left Aurora in a constant frustration, as ironic as that may be coming from her. 

"Of course you bloody do." She brushed off, intending on leaving to go back to the warm comforts of her home that she had been so rudely dragged from earlier on with the promise of some childish fun without the cruel inflictions of guns and violence.

Yet, with Tommy's hand firmly latched around her wrist, it seemed that she wasn't even going to be afforded that luxury. "You never answered me." His eyes starting to trail over the exposed areas of her body that her white blouse had left open, with what she supposed was meant to reflect him searching for any miraculous injuries that she had managed to succumb to while she was wrapped up in his body. Personally she just thought he was making up excuses. 

"I'm fine." Aurora dismissed, grabbing ahold of his hand, she removed his steely grips off of her wrist and let it slip through her fingers until it fell in the gap between them. "Now is there anything else I should know about? Any more grenades lying about, perhaps?" She snarked with an equal level of sarcasm adorned in her smirk as it was in her words. 

Rolling his eyes, Tommy nudged his chin off into the distance back down the lane. "Head back to the shop. The Lees trashed it and I'm sure Pol's gonna need all the help she can get." He added, in between sucking in more puffs of the whittling down cigarette between his fingers, refusing to meet her eye as he gave off his orders.

Aurora actually managed to scowl at him this time, a sight that Tommy could well and truly say parried in intensity to those of the scathing looks he had received from Polly, on many of occasions. "Just another day, right Thomas?" She quipped as she spun on her heels, whipping her blonde tumbling waves around her in a show that reminded Tommy of her dancing figure in that yellow dress with that skirt that flared out around her legs. 

And for that one singular moment, as he watched over her retreating strides, Tommy let his nerve crumple down into a series of short gasps threatening to take his breath away, as he bent over at his waist with his hands clasped tightly around his knees. For when he had rounded that corner and spotted her hands latched onto the door with every intention of swinging it open and inviting a fiery inferno into her lap, he felt as if every single part of himself was back in those tunnels, suffocating in the mud. 

He didn't take a chance to define the emotions surging through him, only inhaled a few large gulps of the freshest air that Birmingham could offer him and rocketed back up into his standing position, immediately storming off back through the cobbled streets with the blades in his peaky hat shining and the bullets in his revolver rattling around upon each heavy deafening stomp of his foot. 

~ ~ ~  
  
  


It had been a busy few days, since the reckoning of the Lee family's fury, and somehow unsurprisingly enough, the amount of reports littering her front step over the numerous secret rendezvous, Thomas Shelby had been attending, and schemes he had been plotting was beginning to overwhelm even her. So when she woke to the baffling invitation of an impending marriage of one unsuspecting John Shelby to a woman she was sure he had never had the chance of encountering before, it had sent Aurora speeding out of her house and on the familiar path towards the Garrison where she knew one of the more straight-talking Shelby brothers ought to be. 

Swinging open the door to the empty pub, Aurora was moments away from calling out Arthur's name, until his easily recognisable gruff voice broke through the silence and stopped her falling short in her strides. "We moor them at junctions so there's more than one way out. No locks within a mile so we can move stuff fast." His words holding a cute sense of pride that in other circumstances may have wormed a smile onto her face if it weren't for her suspicious curiosity winning her over. 

On small measured steps coming round the bend that lent itself to the private office at the back of the pub, Aurora came to see Grace precariously lent over the desk Arthur was sitting behind with a pen in her hand and a charming smile on her face. "Arthur!" She abruptly greeted, snapping the two oblivious souls up into their upright positions before Arthur had the chance to utter anything more. "Do you mind explaining to me what it is I've been hearing about a wedding?" She casually asked of him, resting one of her hips against the open doorway. 

Scrunching her petite little face up in confusion, Grace switched her gaze back and forth between the two with those natural bounds of questions tumbling out of her mouth without restraint. "Someone's getting married?" She parroted, earning Aurora's bright blue eyes to latch onto her with that same sort of steely power that the notorious crime boss also seemed to possess, always leaving her fidgeting under his or her stare. 

"I know Grace, it's quite a surprise." Aurora dryly responded with a pointed look being sent in Arthur's direction that he either failed to pick up on, or simply chose to ignore. 

Muffling the cracks of laughter behind his hand, Arthur could barely contain his delightment for it all at the expense of his poor little brother. "It's gonna be a surprise for the groom as well." He joked. "So don't you go yapping to John 'bout none of this." Warning her with a sly sort of grin and a pointed finger jammed in her direction. 

Huffing out a begrudged sigh, Aurora strode further into the room and sat down on Arthur's desk. "I'm getting quite tired with you Shelby's always underestimating my abilities." She scoffed, her stare narrowing down on his relaxed slumped form. "In my opinion, I believe I hold higher restraint with keeping my mouth shut compared to others." Making a quite obvious spectacle of redirecting her heated gaze towards Grace and flashing her a tight lipped sort of smile. 

Flattening out the her pleated skirt with sweaty hands, Grace quickly broke her eye contact with Aurora and swiped back the damp cigarettes she had came in with. "I've to sort out through more of the stock. Excuse me." Rushing out of the room before either of them could mutter back some sort of reply back. 

As soon as the sound of Grace's heels clicked far enough in the distance, Aurora snapped her glare back towards Arthur with a sturdy kick to his chair. "Really Arthur? Does it seriously only take a pretty smile before you start spilling all the family secrets?" She scolded, with another whack to the side of his chair, only being stopped from giving another one by his challenging gaze and tight hand encompassing her ankle. "It's a wonder that half the whores in this city haven't formed a revolution to take you lot down with all the intelligence you've probably given them." She mocked, tugging herself out of his grip. 

Rolling his eyes, Arthur brushed a hand off in the air dismissively. "She's harmless." He defended, with all the common ignorance of many a man that saw a skirt and thought nothing of the dangers she could be hiding underneath. "I'll tell Tommy later of 'er questions if that will stop your whining." He offered, which helped appease Aurora's suspicions somewhat, if it weren't for the fact that Tommy seemed just as blinded when it comes to pretty little women as the next man. Though before she could offer any more counseling words, Arthur's lips twerked up into a troublesome smirk. "Speaking of Tom, you might want to tell your secret admirer to be more discreet with his next romantic gesture. It'd be unlucky for 'im to face me brother's jealousy." 

"What are you talking about?" She countered, in genuine bewilderment. So much so, that she barely took notice of Arthur's suggestive words. 

"Over there." He nodded over to the corner of the room where a grand vase of stark red roses bled out of the glass tumbler they were sitting in. Aurora's heart beginning to thunder away in her chest with an amplified amount of fear washing her face a ghostly white and the blood pumping around her veins turning an ice cold "Bloody dozen roses sent to me pub with your name in fancy scribbles written on the card." A small rectangular card being thrown in her lap by Arthur's hand, as Aurora's eyes remained frozen on the deadly petals, too scared to turn her attention towards the writing and yet too scared to look at those taunting flowers any longer. 

So at what felt like an eternity stretching out entirely too thin, Aurora dropped her gaze down to the card and picked it up between her shaking fingers. Where, true to his word, Aurora's name was so elegantly written in fancy cursive, she very much doubted anyone in the stacked houses of Small Heath could manage to recreate. Though, if that weren't enough proof in itself, the two initials printed in the bottom right corner, all but sealed her coffin shut. Her breath leaving her body in a gut wrenching punch, that sounded coming out of her mouth like something between a sob and a dreadful gasp. 

Numb legs pushing her off of the table, Aurora ran out of the office, with little to no mind of the man still sitting within it. "Oi, where you goin'?!" He called after her, but she couldn't hear him. She couldn't well hear anything over the blood pumping inside her ears and the ragged heavy breaths evacuating her body before she had a proper chance to actually breathe any of them into her lungs. Her feet taking her out of the side entrance in a dazed stumble, as her mind swallowed itself up into a dark abyss she was so desperately trying to claw herself out of. Her breathing showing no sounds of submitting her to mercy as it continued on it's assault despite the sudden burst of fresh air she felt whipping against her bare skin. The outside world becoming an unattainable blur in those few seconds that seemed as if they were hours, eyes untrained and unfocused. 

It was then that a hand came out of seemingly nowhere and held her by her shoulders, steadying her from toppling over on unsteady feet. "Alright, alright, look at me. Look at me!" Arthur's thundering voice invading her senses, as his hands wound themselves around the backs of her neck and tilted her head upwards. Harsh breathes still being stolen from her before she could have their proper use. "Seen this happen with many a lad when we were in France, alright? Somethin' got you scared out your wits, sending you down in a dark fucking hole." The words rolling off his tongue, as he pressed their heads closer together and held a tighter grip on her neck in his attempts at grounding the girl to something other than her suffering. 

"I don't know what it is that's got you so riled up, but it don't matter, 'cause it ain't gonna touch yer'. You're under the protection of Peaky Blinders now, you got some pent up fucking animals raging in your corner, and ain't no one gonna be able to get yer'" Somehow the comforting gruff tones of Arthur Shelby providing the refuge Aurora was so deeply craving, as little by little the heavy weight sitting on her chest began to lighten and her uncontrollable heaves transformed into her heartbroken sobs. Her body crumpling into Arthur's embrace, while one of his hands moved to her back and the other came to rub comforting strokes on the crown of her blonde hair. "That's it girl, breathe, breathe." He calmed, holding the crying girl firmly against his chest in a protective barrier away from the rest of the wicked world. 

But by their feet rested the crumpled and damaged card, and those fated two initials, promising his arrival in these upcoming days. _V.M._ _The devil himself._

~ ~ ~


	10. Losing Focus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John's wedding offers an explosive time

Aurora wasn't someone who liked to live in denial. She supposed that it was a way to spare her some extra pain and suffering in the long run, as those who chose to be swept up in the false promises that all their problems and troubles would simply dissipate if given the proper amount of time, were only prolonging the inevitable implosion. But, you see, Aurora welcomed the fire, she welcomed the devil's fury threatening to scorch her soul and drag her back into the depths of hell she had so readily escaped from. Because, even if the torture she would endure would be enough to make the hardest of men weep, she would have those blessed memories of the last four years to take as her salvation.

The rare warm mornings shared between cackling women in the bright afterglow of the rising sun shining through the glossy kitchen windows. Her hand clasped in the small enthusiastic grasp of one dear little boy as he took her on grand tours of his uncle Charlie's stables. Teasing remarks and boisterous laughter passed back and forth between two otherwise hard and terrifying gangsters. The feeling of _his_ hands placed on the dip of her back and tangled up between her fingers, their bodies pressed so closely together they were breathing in the same air, slowly gliding through the dancefloor. Each and every moment locked deep within the pockets of her mind that even Satan's daggers couldn't come close enough to tear open.

So for however long her unforeseeable future lasts, Aurora chooses to live in the happy present and stock up on as many joyous keepsakes as she possibly can. It was for that reason, she was adorned in one of her most flattening dresses with her arm linked around a jittery Ada, who found herself sandwiched in the middle of both her and her Aunt Pol due to many an escape attempts the young girl had tried and failed to follow through with.

"Will you stop fidgeting? Jesus, he's your brother not some bloody King." Aurora grumbled, with a less than delicate tug on Ada's arm after she had dug her heels into the mud for what felt like the millionth time. The crowds of familiar suits and peaky hats mixed with the highly distinguishable garb of the Lee clan coming into sights now as they begin their ascent up the final hill, not that that did anything in aid of calming Ada's nerves.

Ada sent Aurora a scowling glare, as the cheers and loud bawlings of the men getting riled up started to reach their ears. "He sure likes to think himself as one." She muttered displeasedly, a clear bitter taste on her tongue that Aurora was sure was going to make some sort of untimely reappearance tonight.

With a shrug of her shoulders, Aurora shot a look towards Ada through the corner of her eye. "Well, I can't offer much defence when it comes to that." She replied with a growing grin slipping on her lips, her and Ada sharing one more humour-filled glance before the pair of them burst into bounds of giggles muffled behind their hands.

"Both of you hush!" Polly seethed, yanking the two women along with her practically sprinting speeds. The duo, resoundly shutting up and hurrying forwards, for the fear that Polly would send them hurtling to the ground if they didn't match her strides otherwise. "They're getting started." She happily added, guiding the three of them through the back of the crowds of men until they were able to spot John kneeling up front with a woman in white by his side.

Following after Polly's lead, the three of the ended up slipping in front of Tommy and his stoic stature. Ada detaching herself from Polly's grip, in an act of truce for John's special day, and moved to stand by her brother's side, sending him a small smile to which he returned to the best of his constrained abilities, still unwilling to let his cold gangsta bravado slip fully in the midst of beady eyes.

Though, with Aurora's brilliant blue skirts wafting in the wind and skimming the ends of his tailored trousers as she and Polly giddily moved to get a closer peek of the action, Tommy blank features betrayed him ever so slightly as his gaze firmly latched onto her in all her usual, but by no means ordinary, glory. The smell of sweet apples trailing behind her and entrapping his senses to a pause where he momentarily seemed to forget where exactly he was and why he seemed to be, the narrowing dark tunnel of his mind reflecting her to be the shining salvation at its bright end.

He would continue to deny it, he didn't deserve to accept it, there was no possible way that it could ever come to fruition, because of who he was and who she was and this dark twisted world he chose to be apart of. There were many number of reasons why the mere concept of such a thing existing between him and this beguiling women was beyond any sort of logic or reasoning. She was an enigma, a dreadfully loose end with ties and secrets stretching out to God knows where and he was a merciless gangsta, who lost his soul in the mud and was not in the need of ever getting it back.

His thoughts were restless and jumbled and messy and completely out of fucking control every time she walked into a room and he soon came to realise that that was never going to bloody change. She had stolen a piece of him like some sort of master thief, sneaking in through the dark solace of night in between shared tumblrs of whiskey and heavy truths, and despite himself, he had let her. He has given her the key to the kingdom and he doesn't know how he is going to get it back. Doesn't know if he wants it back. 

But, that was the point, _he doesn't know_. He doesn't know a single thing about this woman who has become a constant in his life. He doesn't even know her full name, despite the grand lengths he has gone to sculpt out the mysterious background of this unknown figure through his many means and resources dotted around the English country. And he most certainly had no fucking clue as to why she was having a dozen flowers being sent to her, that managed to leave her crying and breathless in his brother's arms like some sort of war torn, shell-shocked, soldier. 

However, that would change. He was going to make sure of it.

Sooner or later Tommy was going to unwind her story and break the cages he so knew that she was becoming trapped in, because on the contrary to the many efforts he was sure both parties played in restricting the dangerous realm of true unadulterated feelings from being explored, Aurora has burrowed herself deep within him to the point of no return. And those who dared to come at her, were now choosing to come at him, and those who choose to come at him, were choosing to meet the barrel of a gun in a swift, but not necessarily slow, _death_.   
  
  


~ ~ ~  
  
  


Night had quickly stolen out the daylight hours and awakened a rowdy celebration of intoxicating drink flow of seemingly never ending spirits, and the thralls of joyous dancing traditions Arthur had took to eagerly guide Aurora around. Her smile never dropping from her face while she was being twirled and spinned and passed between eager strangers all taking up the liquid courage to offer her their hands for one lucky dance with the undeniably stunning blonde. Exhausted feet begging for rest the only reason she was forced to supply sweet apologies to the pleading men all bowing down, for her to pass more time with them in the dancing crowds.

Though sadly enough, Aurora trailed away from the men with breathy laughter tumbling from her lips as she all but toppled into the chair beside Polly, cheeks flushed a dusty pink and eyes glazed over with that alcohol blessed shine. Polly quirked up her brow, a half smirk tugging at her mouth as she silently watched Aurora relax into her euphoric bliss of ignorance. "You enjoying yourself?" She asked, lifting up her glass to take a ginger sip of her drink with her stern unreadable gaze remaining fixed on the girl over the rim of her cup.

Feeling the warming oceans of sinful water crashing forwards and back in her muddled mind, washing away all drowning sentiments of her scarce future, Aurora stared dazedly up to the starry sky above. "Yes, it's quite lovely indeed." She replied, moving her stare reluctantly downwards to meet Polly's eyes, hoping that familial love would help subdue the interrogation she was sure was only just around the corner. "Seen more smiling faces in these last couple hours than in the near four years I've lived in Birmingham."

Polly seemed to entertain Aurora's obvious delaying tactics, for the moment's time at least, casting her gaze over to her jovial niece and nephews celebrating across the greens. "I seem to remember us ladies making do." She countered, a softness infiltrating her usual hard tone as her memories reminisced over in flashes across her eyes. "Given the circumstances." Her words left to ring out into the background noise of the cheers and chants behind them, while an unsettling prompting silence was left to feel as it was suffocating the air Aurora was desperately craving.

Polly's unavoidable gaze drilled into her once again, eliciting her to hastily reach forward onto the table in front of them, grabbing ahold of the first glass she could see and necking the contents down in one fluid swig, cringing immediately afterwards. "Arthur told you, didn't he?" She admitted, not anywhere near actually asking Polly that question, and rather acting more as if she was confessing to some ghastly crime instead. "I've learnt that he isn't exactly good at keeping secrets. And under your stare, I'm sure he dug me out as soon as he stepped through the door."

Huffing out something that resembled laughter, just with much less humour, Polly reached forward to her slick cigarette holder, extracting her black lined smokes and setting one alight in an amber glow. "Of course he did." She answered, with a hint of ridicule. Clouds of stormy eyes narrowing down and cementing Aurora to her seat while the girl's mind whirled for some sort of miraculous escape plan she could enact. "So, I'm assuming that this is the point where I ask you questions and you go on avoiding them, is it?" Now, Aurora could agree that Polly was most certainly not shouting, not close to unleashing a furies screaming match, but the severity and clipped edge moulding her speech was enough that it caused the acceleration of her resting heart to beat just that little bit faster.

Though the devil's juice always did tend mortals to follow through with foolish acts, so without much thought, Aurora found herself combatting Polly's judgement by saying, "Well, if we are both in agreement with how this is going to go, then perhaps we should move onto the next topic. Like..." She leaned forward onto the table, her elbows resting on the edge as her eyes scanned the careless men joshing about with one another as their drinks started spilling down their chins and guts in an attractive display. A rather valiant effort of escaping the dragon's heated glare, she supposed. "Oh I know! Which one of these gentlemen do you reckon, is going to be the first to hit the ground? I have my bets on the redheaded fellow, those skinny little legs aren't looking too sturdy-"

Polly slammed her hand down onto the table in a start, surrounding heads starting to curiously peer at the duo as Aurora shyly ducked her head away from their stares. "You lose your breath at the sight of roses, but you want to talk about drunken fools sloshing about in mud?" She seethed, inching forward on her seat until Aurora had nowhere else to look but to Polly's raging features. "I've half a mind to whack your brain loose from your skull, if you've no intention on using it." Her harsh whisper slicing the cold night air and cutting through her carefree drunkenness, bringing her back into the realms of sobriety she had been so feverishly fighting.

"Pol it's nothing-"

"If it's nothing, you have no issue explaining it to me then." Polly fiercely countered before Aurora could manage to come out with any of the usual excuses she has relayed time and time again. The Shelby woman's patience finally having ran its course when it comes to the _exciting and intriguing_ mysteries this girl so stubbornly refuses to reveal.

Heaving out a fatigued sigh, Aurora leaned back into the iron wrought of her chair painfully digging into her back, meeting Polly's flaring and expectant stare, with nothing but a dead sort of emptiness that froze over her soul. "No good will come of it." She spoke tiredly, as if the words in itself proved so weighty and sticky in substance that it was requiring a rather excruciating amount of effort to relieve them from her body. "It will only set your burning world down into the pits of hell."

Aurora's feet pushing her body uneasily back onto two legs as she looked down on Polly's tight-lipped expression with deep pools of sorrow reflecting in the usual beating blue hues. "And I know that as soon as I tell you of it, you'll try and save me from damnation, but you can't Polly, not this time. Leave it be, or this might well be the last time you see smiles for years to come." The threat rolling off her tongue and falling down into the leagues of space separating the two close confidants, in a devastating blow, that managed to leave the woman with a thousand words, with not even a single thought on how to parry something as numbing as that.

Stretching out the silence for a torturous second longer, Aurora nodded firmly, and spun around in a great giant blue wave of silky material as she made her way back to the oblivious and cheery folk still celebrating mercilessly. Polly watching her every move with a stabbing sensation wrecking through her entire body, leaving her paralysed and alone in the dusky shadows of the cold damp night.

That was until she heard the distinct clearing of somebody's throat passing behind her, alongside the sound of metal scraping against the gravel of the chair previously just preoccupied. "That looked pleasant." Tommy dryly provoked, his eyes unsurprisingly focused on the retreating blonde, as he slumped down opposite Polly.

Baring her teeth like that of a tiger rearing back against the lion, Polly turned to look at her impossible nephew with no less of the force shining behind her glare than that of when she was looking back at the equally as impossible woman. "You have to speak with her, Tommy." She ordered, probably the only person still breathing who could without earning a blade up to their throat. "It's not right, something's not right." She muttered ominously, eyes switching back to the once again twirling girl with that great big fake smile lighting up her pearly whites.

A rather normal reaction to this sort of worrying sentiment pertaining to someone you care about, would usually be that of a pinched brow and an engaged focus to evidently show the concern you felt leaking into your veins, but even in the face of something Tommy already knew to be true, that ruthless docile and unnerving facade did naught to break away, even in the presence of his own Aunt. "It never is with her Pol." So, he rather carelessly replied with a long intake of his smoke.

"So you'll speak with her?" Polly reiterated, firm and unbothered by his blasé approach. He could hold onto whatever sort of masculine pride he needed to, as long as he would do as she says and route out the evil plaguing that girl's mind.

Removing his eyes away from Aurora, Tommy turns to look at Polly with one of his brows risen high up to his hairline alongside that frustrating turn of his lips, that altogether held this look like you had said something both idiotically childish and ridiculously hilarious all at the same time. "And say what?" He countered, waving his arm outwards dismissively. "If she's not opening up to you, how'd you expect she'd do with me, eh?" This quiet humourless chuckle rumbling up underneath his breath, that was quickly swallowed up by another large intake of black tar into his lungs.

Polly shook her head in true disbelief, for these acts of unsurmounted stubbornness were starting to genuinely feel as if they were beginning to take years off of her life. "God, the pair of you." She spoke mainly to herself, rather than to this ridiculous man sitting in front of her. "Do you mistake me as blind? Maybe it's all the time you spend staring at each other, you don't notice everyone watching you both back." She spat, refusing to look at him anymore while he held that act of rare cluelessness to what she possibly could be inferring.

Time seemed to drag on then, this emptiness between them left to torture Tommy and his reluctance to just grow a pair and rile up those deep seeded emotions lumbering around in his buried heart and admit to the indisputable fact, that he was very much hooked onto this woman. The amount of sins he so callously wore printed on his sleeves causing much more shock and horror than any sort of confession he could make right here in this moment, of a truth already known by everyone surrounding. Well, apparently everyone, _except_ these two infuriating sods.

"What do you suggest I do then, Pol? Run over and sweep her off her feet, promise her the moons and the stars, as long as she tells me all her deepest darkest secrets?" He mocked through narrowed eyes with a scoff ripping through his throat at the ridiculousness of his own thoughts.

"That girls got demons Tommy. I knew it the moment I laid eyes on her." Polly said with a certain layer of thickness to her voice that managed to miraculously captivate Tommy's attention. "During the war, not once, had I ever seen fear in that girl's eyes; not with the bombings, not with the children, nor the guns, drugs or booze lying about, not once." She added, with a cursed sigh. "Now, all I see, is a scared little girl hiding under the sheets, waiting for the monsters to come and get her." Her head slowly casting her solemn eyes to drift over back to the enigmatic women with demons for shadows. "She's completely fucking petrified."

Thomas allowed the space of one ticking hand to pass on his twitching pocket watch before he was rocketing out of his chair and heading in the direction of the blonde wisps of hair swirling in the black ink night. The distance that had stretched between them gone within a blink of an eye, as Tommy's hand naturally found itself on the small delicate dip of her waist, untraceable lines of a smirk ghosting his lips at the sudden shiver that he felt wrack through her at his touch. All thoughts of personal space becoming lost on him as he presses, what Aurora would argue as every single inch of himself, firmly against her back until it felt as if he was encompassing her entire figure.

"I think you need a break from dancing, don't you?" He murmured in her ear discreetly, not that any of the party goers were paying them much mind, far too drunk already to care. Though the rumbling whisper in which he spoke momentarily made Aurora wonder if he was treating her the same as he would with one of his fillies and their crazed sudden spooks at the faintest of noises. And if he was, should that preempt her to be worried of the future hazards that lie ahead or reassured that he would be there to stifle her horrors and fears when the danger comes.

Aurora wasn't much favouring the latter.

She gave him a small nod in response, as if she was being given any sort of choice in the matter, and compliantly let him lead her down through the litters of tents and vardos, by his hand that remained securely latched around her waist. Noises began to dull and waver until they started to sound nothing like happy cheers of the celebrating and more like the luny ramblings of old men without any teeth.

"Where we going, Tommy?" Aurora finally asked him after they moved past what felt like a substantial amount of multicoloured tents, without even the smallest sign that Tommy showed in slowing down. To be completely honest, Aurora didn't even believe Tommy knew where it was that he was leading them, but that sense of unwavering confidence he held in his strides could make any fool bow down to his law.

"Just a little bit further from the chaos." Tommy replied, as they rounded off a corner into the even further depths of darkness Aurora hadn't even come to realise this presumed small lot of land managed to own.

"I thought you loved chaos. That's where men like you thrive."

Coming to a rather brisk stop, Aurora managed to catch herself from stumbling, something she presumed for some unknown and unexplainable reason she believed he had wished she had done. This man's superiority complex truly reaching new leaps and bounds everytime she found herself drowning in his presence, becuase there was no other thing you could truly do but drown. Drown in those two bottomless pits of blue that somehow could be characterised as his eyes.

He was staring at her with those eyes, as he turned his body side on to face her, Aurora mimicking his every move until they were standing face to face with barely enough room to slot a hand in between them. "You should know by now Aurora, there are no men like me." That Birmingham lilt to his voice creating some sort of oxymoronic anomaly where she was able to hear that rough drawl of each drawn out syllable but she could swear that the words felt smooth and silky washing over the pearls of her porcelain cheeks. 

Rather impressively retaining her ability to not let her eyes fall to his soft pillowy lips that controlled it all, a smirk managed to appear on the utmost corners of her mouth. "Humbling as always." She quipped, with what she knew was her last slice of humour before she would be targeted for yet another inquisition from a Shelby, only this time she presumed that nothing would deter this bull from earning his red flag.

"Have a seat." He told her with only the tiniest flick of his gaze upwards to the open vardo conveniently stationed behind them.

"I rather like this dress, don't want it getting dirty." She defied, her fingers tracing the lines of her soft skirt in purposeful hypnotic movements that Tommy refused to be so weak than to give in to. "Plus, I was hoping that this can be a rather short conversation. No need to drag these things out when we both know how it's going to go."

Much preferring brutal honesty and direct intentions than to the usual strategic twists and turns he was so used to playing in her presence anyway, Tommy gave her a satisfied curt nod in return. "Alright fine." He cleared his throat, reverting back to his businessman-like procedure and ignoring the continued close quarters they refused to relinquish. "You're gonna tell me who it is that you've been running from, and you're going to do it now." He paused briefly to watch the contortions of her face. "No more playing games, no more secrets, just the truth."

"Who said that I've been running from anyone?"

"No." He interrupted, that hellish trigger finger of his raising and pointing right between her eyes, with the same ferocity as if it was a gun replaced there in its stead. "No more answering questions with even more fucking questions." He ordered with fire rumbling through his chest and rioting through his speech, his finger moving out of her eye line and directing back into the emptiness from which they emerged. "Polly's worried about you, and when she's worried, she gets distracted and I can't have her being distracted. So, answer my question."

Aurora chose to ignore the slight dull sensation that rippled through her at Tommy's admission for dragging her away into this secluded hideaway, swallowing down the useless disappointment like it was a physical lump stuck in her throat. "I can't do that." She told him, taking a step back towards the light and away from his lethal orbit.

But, Tommy's calloused hands snapped upwards and gripped onto her arms, speed and strength working to his advantage as he pushed them both back against the vardo's splintering wooden wall and trapped her with his immovable body. "I didn't say you could leave." He seethed, in that cool quiet anger of his.

"For, fuck's sake." She cursed, pushing against his chest in repeated consecutive blows of useless exertion, as his hold on her body became impossibly tighter and strong-willed. Barely so much as blinking at her while the mix of frustration and desperation leaked out of her body in a meltdown of will. "I'll be sending you to your grave! I'll be sending all of you to your fucking graves!" She pleaded, a downpour of wet salty tears trickling out her glistening eyes and dripping down her cheeks as her tight fisted pounding softened against Tommy's hardened heart and her hands moved to wind themselves in the course material of his coat lapels. "Please Tommy, just let me go." Voice crumbling to just beyond a whisper.

There was the tiniest of moments where Aurora actually begun to believe he would listen to reason and abandon this crusade of heroism, or whatever it was that he was striving for. A small fleeting feeling that he would listen to the emotional tethers barely holding up her fragile sanity, and dote on her the way in which every other man holding a weeping woman in his arms should. But then he opened his mouth to utter those orders, all the same, and squandered any resemblance of hope left inside her. "Tell me their names, Aurora."

Tears quickly being sucked dry to be replaced by a swelling anger long since buried, Aurora dropped her hands away from his coat, and let them flop down to her sides. Momentarily, hating that part in herself that missed the feeling of his cool body under her warm touch. "Why, what are you going to do? What is the great Tommy Shelby going to do to save the little damsel in distress?" She spat, hard tones of sarcasm and spite laced into her voice that punctuated off of her tongue like long thin knives digging into flesh.

"I'll kill them." He replied so easily, so fluidly, as if the action in itself would be as normal as breathing for him. And there wasn't a single part of Aurora that doubted for a second that this man with blood soaking his skin would cower away from such an unholy act if he held such power to do so, just because he fucking can and he fucking would. 

"Simple as that." She said, with a sick smile coating her lips. 

"Yeah, simple as that." Tommy fired back, determined, unruly, so completely bloody sure in himself and this great image he has conjured up about his invincible bloody nature. And he was towering over Aurora with two dark balls of blue cutting deep into her, like the blades in his cap would, and inviting her to argue back otherwise, challenging her to reveal any sort of real reason as to why that should be so fucking impossible for him to do so. 

She refused to raise to the bait, elected to prod and push and bludgeon this callous act of his that was awakening a sort of furious passion within her that was becoming near uncontrollable to quell. "Going to round up all your Blinder boys? Take some of those Lees with you? Go to war for me?" She antagonised with a nudge of her head back to his army collectively waiting in the barracks for the order of their Sergeant Major.

"Yep." He argued back with a smack of his lips and a nod of his head. "If I fucking need to."

"Christ sake." She spoke in hushed tones, completely astounded by what she was being confronted with, as her mind tirelessly worked at finding some sort of reasoning behind this mad man's pride. "Why?" She then asked, after finding no solution herself. "Just give me some sane, non-Tommy Shelby, answer as to why you would risk everything to do that?!" Painful shouts echoing off the world around them, as her hands gave him one more unceremonious shove in contempt that did little to faze him anymore than the first one did.

"I've already told you-"

"No!" She interrupts, before he could utter the words. "You want me to answer your questions, you answer mine." A deafening stillness settling over the pair, as Tommy was left to stare down at her, and her up at him. For he had been going through every single possible line that could come out of her mouth over and over in his head, every single possible scenario that would link this woman to a dangerous and complicating past he would have to clean up. But, for all this calculating he had done, he had not prepared for this gauntlet to be thrown down at his feet.

As it is one thing for Polly to throw in her judgement over how it is he is supposedly meant to be feeling, one thing for his brothers to nudge and wink every time his eyes get caught on her from across the room. Another thing entirely when the two of them dance around each other in subtle flirtations and exercises of will, testing who it is that is going to cave in and duck out first before anything gets too serious. But, for her to stand there, fury lighting a fire in blue oceans, and ask him to confess to the reality of their entanglement, to commit his deepest emotions out loud for not only but his thoughts to hear, it left him speechless, for what is probably the first time in his whole life.

And Aurora could feel her hands twitching at her sides, for she was starting to feel completely unprepared for the severity of her own insistence. Her mouth having worked much faster than her brain could come to process, and spilled out this question without truly realising the consequences of such actions. But she refused to back down. Refused to reach out and touch him, fought against every fibre inside her that was screaming to cup his face in her hands and feel the smooth roughness of his skin under her fingertips. Because she knew what would happen if she did that. She knew that if she were to move her hands away from their locked position by her sides and up to meet his body; they would kiss.

They would kiss, and it would be glorious. With his rough fingers tangled up in her hair, his hand on her waist, pushing her into his chest, lips moulding against each other in a messy rhythm of rushed desires, his teeth grazing her bottom lip as she traced his steel jaw...

It would be so easy. She would give him the excuse, to run away from the admittance of things that needed to be heard and instead crumble into the excuse that she was a pretty girl and he a simple man presented with a lustful situation that he could no longer deny. Yet, she could not allow that to happen, because if she were to open up Pandora's box and release the swarms of locust thrashing away inside, it needed to be for more than just lust, it had to be for more than just desire.

But, he remained silent, stoic and still, refusing her the salvation she truly needed, and cowering away from choices she so boldly laid out for him. "I'm not giving you a name, Tommy. My end is inevitable, and maybe yours is too, but I'm going to make sure that I play no part in it." And this time, when she nudged him backwards he allowed her to move him, giving her the space to slip her body from out of his control. Heels sinking into the mud as she moved like a blur back towards the hearty heat of the party that was left untouched by their feral match of toxic tongues.  
  
She didn't dare face anyone with the last name Shelby when she returned to the hub of the celebration, sticking to the hidden outskirts of the party and scanning the laden tables for anymore traces of alcohol to help blur her racing mind. But, when the sudden outburst of a familiar woman reached her corner of the camp, she found her feet subconsciously leading her to the commotion. 

"Come and look Esme! Look at the family you've joined! Come, look at the man who runs it!" She heard Ada screech from her spot in the middle of the floor, banging her fists against Tommy's chest in a rather similar fashion as to how she had just been doing. The sight perhaps a little comical, if it weren't for the swollen belly the girl was carrying. "He chooses his brother's wives for them. He hunts his own sister down like a rat and tries to kill his own brother-in-law!" Ada endlessly berated, each point being pressed with another punch, until she had managed to wrestle the whole Shelby clan surrounding her like she was some highly explosive bomb ready to detonate. "Now he won't even let me have a fucking dance!"

Aurora sleuthed around to Ada's side, a kind smile on her face and a gentle hold on the girl's flailing limbs as she attempted to turn her body away from Tommy's infuriating stature. "Ada, love, come sit down with me." She softly coaxed, while a berate of other voices toppled over around her in varying tones of helpfulness. 

Though it seemed blinding rage had clouded all of Ada's other senses as she barely so much as looked at Aurora, continuing on in her attacks towards her brother with little to no care for the performance she was putting on. "Not even at a fucking wedding!" She heaved finally, hands falling away from Tommy and instead moving to her knees as she hunched over, deep painful pants escaping her lips. 

But before Aurora could ask what was wrong, she felt a sudden burst of liquid hit the tips of her shoes that made her yelp, and jump back a couple steps in surprise. "Holy shit, water." Polly gravely spoke with wide eyes trained to the ground. 

It took a moment for any of them to actually react to the rather startling piece of information that Ada's stomach was about to pop, all just exchanging rather dumb looking stares at one another, until Polly started cursing and snapping at them while she held a gentle arm around Ada and began mustling her to the direction of the car. Aurora finding herself scuttling behind as Polly started shouting orders left and right over the top of Ada's tremendous wails of agony. 

"Bloody hell, Ada you do pick your fucking times!" Arthur's voice boomed over the noise, earning him a swift slap to the back of his head as Aurora passed him, shoving him in the direction of John's new car with a stern glare when he turned to look at her over his shoulder. But Aurora, didn't give him any opportunity to combat with some sort of rowdy response, because she was already throwing herself into the passenger seat of the Tommy's car, screeching tires setting them off seconds later, in what felt like a dust of smoke billowing out behind them. 

~ ~ ~  
  
  


It is said to be a woman's greatest achievement to welcome life into this world, a happy memory to cherish for the rest of your days. But as Aurora sat with Ada screaming bloody murder between her legs, her back pressed against her chest and their hands locked together in a bone-shattering grip, she was very much beginning to second guess all the many men who could have possibly come up with that ridiculous idea. 

"Keep going. That's right. Push." Polly's encouraging words managing to submerge from below the deep stream of Ada's pain as she kneeled by the opening of her legs, awaiting the child's emergence. 

But when the screams had yet to cease and continued to drag on, for what Aurora hoped was an unusual amount of time, Esme reached a hand down to Ada's stomach with a deep pensive look furrowing her brows and screwing up her dark, dark eyes. Darker than any Shelby before her that was for certain. "I think it might be the wrong way round. I attended three sisters." She informed them, and while Polly and the new Shelby passed knowing looks to the other, Aurora sat there clueless, having no idea if that was a thing that should be causing them concern or not. 

So when Polly, got up from her knees and began to collect Ada's hands from Aurora's, she felt herself becoming increasingly nervous, scarring pasts conjuring fatal scenarios in her mind in terrifying bursts. "Yeah, I think you might be right." She agreed passively, her tone was calm, no sign of worry Aurora could detect, but Ada was being taken out of her arms all the same. 

They turned her until she was on all fours, like some sort of cattle, and if Aurora didn't already have deep resentment built up to the horrid procedures of childbirth than the sight of her dearest friend, bleached red, sweating and belching, it would have most definitely made her have her reservations nevertheless. It definitely kept her far away from, what she could only assume was a rather nightmarish sight, of Ada's delicates, firmly planting her knees on the space of the floor in front of the girl with cool soothing towels in hand, dabbing away the pools of tears and sweat streaking her cheeks. 

"Come on. Not long to go now, darling." Polly pushed once more. 

Though, Ada's resolve was starting to deplete, so with a surrendering shake of her head, the girl found herself saying, "I can't do it. Please, I can't." The words barely making it above a murmur, as her eyes started to droop and her head began to sag into her shoulder. The sight enough for Aurora's face to grow pale, and jittery fingers to reach out onto either side of the young girl's face until they were cupped in the space of her palms. 

"Yes, you can Ada." She swore adamantly, refusing Ada to fall into that woesome percentage that leaves nothing behind but broken hearts and tiny orphans. "You're a goddamn Shelby." She provoked, with eyes as hard as diamonds sparking matches inside the girl with ruthless rebellion etched in her heart. 

"I'm a fucking Thorne." She gritted out through clenched teeth, as the spark turned into a fire and the fire turned into a blazing round inferno of scathing energy welling up in the girl until she was steadying herself up on her arms, with her chin lifted up high in the air like the regals are taught to do. Because Ada Thorne _was_ fucking royalty, and she was about to birth her Prince. 

With a wicked smile taunting her lips as she watched it all happen in its spectacular array, she lent her forehead onto Ada's feverish skin until all the two of them could see was each other. "Push, Ada. Push." And in one almighty release of Ada's lung capacity, the young women pushed and pushed, until her screams were being beaten by another's joyous presence. 

When Ada crashed down into the heaps of pillows and blankets littering the bed, Aurora was able to spot the bundled roaring little thing being swaddled up in Polly's silently weeping hold as she tiptoed closer and closer to the pair. Tears blurring her vision, Aurora moved to assist in getting Ada turned over and comfortable on her back in time for Polly to reach their side and hand over the fresh eyed beauty still screeching his tiny heart out, into Ada's awaiting arms. 

The three women all huddled over each other in hopes of getting a proper look, all spots of trouble and hardships staining their individual relationships, momentarily being forgotten as they were rendered into a peaceful bliss they hoped to never be awoken from. "I told you so." Aurora snarkily chirped, Polly's laughter coming tumbling out immediately afterwards as Ada's head shot up, away from her child, and to gape at the blonde with her mouth wide open. 

"Really? Even after childbirth, you still won't give me fucking rest." She snipped back, but was only rewarded a cheeky wink in return that made the new mother want to scream and shout from the fucking rooftops, because Aurora was bloody impossible sometimes and she believed that all the neighbours on their street should know it too. 

Though before she could follow through with any such plans, the door came swinging open and in came the father of her child, all panting and wild. "It's a boy, Freddie." She told him, as he stood partially frozen by the door. Both, Polly and Aurora scooting backwards to leave him some space for when he finally grew up the nerve to move one foot in front of the other. 

And when he finally did, soft smiles being exchanged between them as a family stood united in what any and all could describe as a lovely image, three large brutish bangs of the door broke the serenity created, like glass shattering against a wall. "Open up police!"

A cold air settled over the room, as not even a single breath was allowed to be sucked in before the sound of wood being cracked open was heard, and multiple sets of large heavy boots were stomping down the narrowed hall. "You can't come in here! There's a baby just been born!" Esme valiantly tried, her small frame attempting to hold back the militia of men swarming the room. 

Though, it was within record time that Freddie was in their merciless hold, his helpless cries, mixed in with his wife's and child's, left unheard while he was battered and bruised on his way back into the cold darkness seeping in from the outside world. Aurora already with her arms wrapped around Ada's sobbing form as she whispered useless sentiments into the mother's ear, Polly having disappeared to spite a nephew of hers and Esme somewhere or other tending to the baby she had been passed in the rush of it all. 

A truly happy memory indeed.  
  



	11. Familiar Returns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> family reunions leave violent afterthoughts

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒, is that there is rarely any build up to them. One minute you're standing on solid ground, air flooding your lungs, blood pumping in your veins and then the next...you're lying face-first in your self-made grave with torn off limbs, and skeleton bones ripping your soul far away from your broken body. It's all very sudden, all excruciatingly painful and the only salvation it could possibly offer you is that death may take pity, and provide you with a quick escape.

Otherwise, you are just left with the aftermath. Arguably, a much crueler fate.

So, it was for that very reason, that Aurora could never have known the utter chaos that was going to rain down upon her that very morning when she woke up from an otherwise normal and uninteresting slumber. Completely unaware of the landmines littering the ground she walked on and threatening to cause a fiery display of long avoided trauma just waiting to be explored. 

"Where have you been?" Tommy's clipped tone invading Aurora's peaceful morning walk as he abruptly appeared by her side, a dark broodiness etched on his usual blank face. Recent familial exile causing his already bright and shiny mood to take an even sourer turn as of late, and currently being one of the many reasons Aurora has took at avoiding his presence as much as humanly possible since John's wedding.

"Good morning to you too, Tommy." She quipped back in a huff, pulling her fur trimmed coat closer around her body, given the glare that Tommy pierced her with in retribution was icier than the cold dampness settling over the gray cloud of Birmingham's sky, striking her down to her core.

"I'm not in the mood today, Aurora." Her spat back, void of any and all emotional attachment as their footsteps cracked and thundered together on the stones beneath their feet in a soldier's march. "It's a simple question, no reason to run away from it." He added spitefully, with a not so sly dig into their last conversation captured in the shadows of the Lee's campsite, with her teary stained cheeks and his fractured resolves.

"I've been busy." She replied through clenched teeth, cocking her head to the side slightly so she could meet his eyes with sardonic slip of a smile sarcastically stretched across her lips. "My life doesn't completely revolve around you, funnily enough."

She knew that she shouldn't rise to his bait, try and outlast his need to control each and every situation with his sharp edges blended into each of his impassive words he speaks, through bored monotones. But, when he does that _thing_ of his, when he chooses to remember a situation they had both experienced with the selective memory of an infant, and only recollect on her discrepancies compared to his own, it was near impossible to cool her anger. Because from her point of view, she wasn't the only coward heavily skirting around questions that needed to be answered by the other.

The two of them had settled into a silence, as Tommy focused in on the smoke entering his lungs, rather than the words she chose to throw at him. Finding restraint within him to not snap and growl at her bold tongue. "I want to know, if you know." He instead grounded out, voice low and near impossible to hear, but he could tell she had picked up on it from the slight pinch between her brows that she quickly smothered away.

"I know a lot of things Tommy, mind narrowing it down." She smartly retorted, briefly flicking her gaze over to him to see if the effect of her snark had hit him how she wanted it to.

Rolling her words around in his mouth, Tommy forced another intake of ash to stop his frigid features from settling her with another deathly stare, like he knew she wanted him to. "About black star day." He shot back in procedure, because despite Aurora's lack of seriousness, Tommy needed the reassurance that his plan would not fall into the laps of his enemies, and to do that he needed to know if it had already fallen into the laps of his allies.

Suppressing a tiresome sigh she felt fluttering in her chest, Aurora refrained from the many more antagonising remarks she held up her sleeve and instead supplied him with a real answer in a dry sleuth of her voice. "Surprising as this may be, but no, no I don't. What is it?" She questioned, mildly intrigued, and somewhat concerned that she hadn't heard of this little nugget of knowledge. For if her little birds had fallen short on this account, it only begged the question to what else they had failed to inform her about.

"The day this all comes to an end." Tommy said cryptically, earning a lofted brow from Aurora and a glance from the corner of her eye. "No one is to know the exact date. The only person who does, is Grace."

"Grace?" Aurora repeated back to him, hoping that she must misheard him, _praying_ that Tommy had more sense in that muddled mess of his mind than to truly fall for the whims of most men and announce all of his vital plans for the future to that of an unknown variable. All because of the dainty frame and prim features that _variable_ comes packaged in.

But, when he just gave her that deadpan sort of stare back in confirmation of his actions, she scoffed. Loudly. Glad that he could hear her, because he deserved to know how unbelievably bloody stupid he was being. "God, you Shelby men are all the same. Start spewing your life story whenever she flashes a sweet smile." She mutters with a shake of her head, fluttering her hand off like a butterfly flapping their wings.

"She's in charge of my diary. Keeps track of certain documents, I might need." He combats in defence, the grit of his teeth audible through his words as his patience dwindles like the end of the dying cigarette in his hands. Brushing off all of her insinuations on his weakness, with the promise that if anymore digs were to be made about it, he wouldn't be so kind as to let her get away with it. "It's a necessity that she should know."

"I'm sure it is." She provoked with a smirk on her face, that had Tommy falling to a dead stop in the middle of the cobbled path, sticking out his arm in front of her like a barricade that forced her feet to comply the same as his.

"D'you have something to say to me?" His words a challenge, always a challenge, pushing her to start some sort of argument in the bustling public of Small Heath's streets, daring her to put on a show for the busybodies wanting some sort of slice of entertainment to start their day and fuel their gossiping desires. For he was not in the good spirits to hold back on putting forth an example, an example that would scream to all of his followers that you do not question the great Tommy almighty. Instead, you fall in line and you follow his orders with a happy smile on your pretty face, and a _Yes Mr. Shelby_ , _Of course Mr. Shelby, Whatever you say Mr. Shelby..._

So, with a happy smile on her pretty face, Aurora answered him with a, "No, Mr Shelby, nothing of the sort." And before, he could go off in some flare of dramatics, Aurora was walking away once again, headed down the path to the side entrance of the Shelby household with his heavy stomps echoing in the background.

Swinging open the door, with a slight edge of aggression still lingering in her veins, Aurora waltzed into the kitchen with her heels shaped as thorns clicking against tiles in sharp pangs of noise. She wasn't quite sure who it was that she was looking for that could help dwindle the heat burning a blinding white behind her eyes, Polly most certainly not being an option at the moment and Ada currently hidden away in her hovel somewhere in the city. Maybe John or Arthur could provide her with some liquid distraction, she'd be sure to ask them. Either way it didn't really matter seeing as a husky new voice interrupted any plans she could have made with his large and brash overwhelming presence suffocating the room she just walked into.

"Speak of the devil." He drawled out in that familiar lilt to his voice that held very similar qualities to that of Tommy's, with just a bit more age and smoke clogging up his vocal cords. "How are you, son?" His stare completely ignoring Aurora as it was trained over her shoulder, to where she could assume Tommy stood, motionless, completely barren of anything except a deep resolute anger that is reserved only for that of familial cause. And he didn't answer him. Aurora didn't hear as much as a single breath leave his lungs while he just stared. Stared and waited, as if this mystery man would merely cease to exist if he just waited long enough.

The mystery man, cleared his throat in an awkward show, shifting his stare over to Aurora who was standing there, doe-eyed and thoroughly confused. "And whose this? You finally took up yourself a wife? Sure is a shiner." He praised, with an appreciative scan of her body from head to toe. Aurora barely batting an eyelash at him, it just being a rather tiring repeated offence at this point in her life, but a sudden heat being pressed against her back told her that not everyone held her same constraint.

"Get out." Tommy seethed. His hand on her back feeling like it was doused in lava, that ironically was sending shivers down her spine, for so many reasons that it shouldn't but for all the reasons that she wanted. And Aurora felt the need to slap herself, because she was being ridiculous, and she was supposed to be angry at him. So, very very angry at him, for reasons she wasn't quite sure on, but there were reasons nonetheless.

"Come on son. I'm a changed man." The mystery man defended. Weakly, Aurora might add. And, she supposed that he wasn't really a mystery man after all, considering Polly's pinched face and John's sullen looks and the repeated foreign use of the word _'son'_ coming out of his mouth after the end of each of his thoughts, like he was making up for the times when he wasn't there to use it by spewing it every fucking second he could.

"This family needed you ten years ago. And you walked out on us. Not now. Get out of this house." Tommy ordered, in that deathly silent anger, his words not reaching above a certain octave and yet still holding the ability to feel as if, he was shouting so loudly that he could make your ears bleed.

"Tommy, he's different-"

"Shut up." He snapped at Arthur before those same pathetic sentiments of a hopeful and naive child could come into light. Aurora's eyes momentarily switching over to look at the dejected weight lowering his high strung shoulders, until he was adapting the posture of a kicked puppy in all its vulnerability.

"It's alright son. Arthur Shelby never stays where he's not welcome." He said, in all earnest. Something Aurora spotted having earned a rather ridiculing scoff from Polly, looking like it was the most amusing thing she had ever heard. No one seemed to pay her much mind however, as Arthur Senior drew on his top hat and levelled Tommy with a rather indiscernible stare. "Quite something you've become." His strides, carrying him out towards the door in a moment's flash, but not without leaving a festering build up of thick tension in his wake.

"He's our dad." Arthur argued, mirroring Tommy's quiet temper while refusing to turn and look at his brother still plotted by Aurora's side.

"He's a selfish bastard."

Arthur released something resembling laughter at Tommy's spite, just with a lot more darkness littering its corners, until Aurora began to understand the fear that he raptured in his own reputation. The mad dog with even madder cravings for a bloodthirsty violence. And right now all that pent up rage was being directed straight towards his brother, pitting them in opposing corners of a boxing ring. "You calling someone a selfish bastard, that's a bit rich Tommy." He staggers up on his feet, dragging them across the tiled floor until he was looming over Tommy. "I mean thanks to you, we're already down a bloody sister."

Finally removing his heated touch away from her back, Tommy inches closer to Arthur. "You want to see him Arthur? You want to see him? You go with him." He provokes the beast, gesturing out harshly to the same door their father had just walked out of.

There was a moment there, that the two soldiers stood toe-to-toe with one another, jittery fingers drumming against their sides as if they were within half an inch of drawing their guns out at each other and start firing like a pair of lunatics, but with one last snarl, Arthur spun back around storming through the emerald green doors with grumbled curses and twisted features.

Tommy waited for one minuscule second before he was strolling in right after his brother, orders already being thrown about left and right towards Scudboat and Lovelock, as Aurora and Polly remained in the kitchen both internally trying to comprehend the idiocies of men. "This family is going up in fucking smokes." Polly uttered, from her spot resting against the wall.

And on the tip of her tongue, Aurora felt a snarky response coming alive to rattle the tension riddling the air, but before it had a chance to pass her lips, a new voice broke out over the usual Birmingham gruff. "I'm Marco, and this is my brother Leo, it's a pleasure to meet you." The words rolling out all pleasant and proper, the pure picture of elegance and class from beyond the two green doors leading into the betting den, it sounding like many a simple dignified greeting, no malice or spite hidden underneath.

But that voice. That voice made time fall to a freeze frame. Air becoming frighteningly colder. Colours fading into a shadowy darkness, as if the daylight hours had ran away to hide in the safe quarters that only the night sky could provide. The sensation of sharp claws digging into the supple flesh of her neck and ever so slowly pulling and _pulling_ until she felt the trickle of blood run down her chest and soak her shirt. Flashes of devastating horrors rushing past her vacant eyes in rapid succession until the only thing she could see was chaos and carnage.

She didn't remember telling her feet to move, couldn't recall finding the will to put one foot in front of the other, but it was happening, and everything sped up in hyper motion once again. "Where you going-" Polly's voice drifting past her ears as she flew past the kitchen threshold and into the den, her gaze latching onto _his_ hand shaking Tommy's with an easy smile gracing his charming face, while the other one stood loyally beside him.

Removing the gun clipped to her thigh, Aurora levelled it upwards in line to her brother's heads, with a shakiness she was trying desperately to rid herself of. "Get out." She ordered, all heads snapping towards her with various degrees of emotions encompassing each face.

Though being the first to react, Leo spun around on his toes with that large haunting cackle of his and met Aurora's eye with a grin stretched along his shark teeth. "There she is!" His arms spread out wide as he casually strolled closer and closer to her in dangerous proximities. "Blimey you're a sight for sore eyes, little sis." That phrase of endearment feeling like razor blades slicing up her lungs as it exited his mouth. Images of that devilish face towering over her as she laid bloody and defeated by his feat consuming her mind as she took a trip down memory lane.

And to make matters worse, she could feel Tommy's deep-set stare burrowing a hole down into her bones from the corner of her eye, his unresponsive outward features not giving much away in favour of the strangers with the gun being pointed at their skulls, but she knew the fury of questions littering his mind that he wished to drown her in. It was hard deciphering the anger from the confusion or the soldier's steadiness from the impassiveness, it all muddling into one look on his face that she had prayed he would never give her.

Though, decidedly focusing on the larger threat, Aurora kept her glare narrowed down on Leo, occasionally switching it over to Marco behind his shoulder. "Walk out the door, get in your car, and leave." Her voice surprisingly steady despite the noose she felt tightening around her throat. 

Heaving out a sigh, like this was all just one big inconvenience for him, Marco twisted his body to face her. "I'm afraid we can't do that, Ace."

God. There it was, that stupid fucking nickname. Hearing it once again made her wish she had no ears at all. "Then I unload my gun." She bit back, staring right into the hell's mouthpiece with not an inch of fear passing into her blazing blue eyes. Pulling back the hammer of her gun with a satisfying click echoing in the room.

Shaking his head, with another chuckle leaving his lips, Leo was watching her in the way you do when a child opens their mouth for the first time to shoot some adorably pathetic insult at you while in the midst of a red-faced tantrum. Amused and pitying. No part of him accepting Aurora's threats for anything more than dramatic overshot bluffs he believed them to be, as he let his arrogance run free. "Come on sis, we both know you were never one for target practice." He argues back, with a hand wafting at her gun like it was just a toy.

"Trust me Leo, my bullet will end up exactly where it needs to." She fires back, with a quick burst of a siren's smile, it coming and going within a blink of an eye. But, that only seemed to entertain him further, as he just stood there, looking at her with that damned smirk lighting up his haunting features.

"What the fuck is going on 'ere?!" Arthur's voice came rushing in, exploding onto the scene as he grew lacklustre in simply being a quiet participant in this scene any longer like the rest of the Shelby's dotted around the betting den. Tommy still planted in front of Marco, John hanging off the wall to her right with fidgety hands, Polly edging in behind her with charcoal eyes switching back and forth, Scudboat and Lovelock standing by one of the desks awaiting orders and Arthur practically jumping up and down on his toes from his spot in the middle of the room. All of them completely unaware of what the _fuck_ was happening and what the _fuck_ would happen next and not exactly looking eager to find out edgeways.

"We've not come for any trouble, we assure you." Marco placated in his usual manner, always being the much calmer of the two. The negotiator, the peacekeeper, the brains to Leo's brawn. "We're only here to retrieve our sister and then we'll be on our way." He added in the most casual of ways as he addressed Tommy, capable at spotting the man in charge and molding his behaviour to suit their business needs with extreme precision.

Tommy finally tore his eyes away from Aurora, moving his hard stare down onto Marco as he clasped his hands in front of him in a conscious effort, it preventing him from ripping his own gun from its holster and raising it to this smug bastard's head himself. "Looks like she doesn't really want to leave with you." He retaliated, calmly spoken.

Because despite the bottled up entanglement of sentiment wrapping itself around Tommy's heart and mind like a garrote with a serrated edge, he didn't take much pleasure in those laying claim to what is already his. Boys who looked him up and down like he was nothing but a piece of shit hanging off their shoes, under the guise of forced pleasantries, being the bane of his existence. And the way that Aurora was clutching onto that gun, like it was the only thing keeping her standing, was enough for him to ward off the anger that was brewing over her stubbornness that had lead them into situations such as these, and instead stand in as that immovable force battling against the enemies he had so promised to fight against when the time came.

"We're in the middle of a little family disagreement." Marco replied back, like it was some sort of cruel twisted inside joke. It forcing Aurora's grip on her gun to tighten just that tiny little bit more and Tommy's glare to harden ever so slightly.

"And besides she doesn't really have much of a choice." Leo added, no games or tricks that he liked to play in the form of democracy or subtlety but much rather the blatant show of masculine bravado and the instilled expectations of the rich and powerful man, who does and says what he pleases with worrying very little over the consequence of such actions.

He took another arrogant step closer towards her, his beady gaze wild and enthused with that unsettling addiction he has for mayhem and pain. And so, in compliance to his wishes of pain, Aurora moved her revolver off to the side by an inch and pulled the trigger, without an ounce of hesitation. The bullet tearing through the air and lodging into Leo's shoulder, erupting the room into a catalyst of reactions. With Arthur's gun being levelled upright to point at Marco's head, and Polly's distant presence now being packed right up to her side.

Leo stumbled back in shock, as he pressed his hand up to his wound, pulling it back to inspect the blood caking his fingers as if he couldn't tell if the injury was real or not otherwise.

"Take one more step towards me, next one goes between your eyes." Aurora seethed, disregarding the string of bewildered gazes cemented on her as she kept her eyes flaring and forward on her targets. Leo snapping out of his daze at the sound of her voice, and moving his explosive scowl upwards onto Aurora, practically foaming at the mouth.

"You little bitch!" He bellowed, disregarding her words and storming forward like a war horse set out to charge.

Though before another bullet could be fired, or act of vengeance could be enacted, John had interrupted Leo's path and stood in between him and Aurora with two tight fists clenched by his sides, one holding his cap with the glistening razor blade stitched inside. "Just give me the order, Tom." He called out, without removing his glare away from Leo who stood beneath him.

Growing thrilled at the prospect of a chance to shed the blood of some Birmingham sod onto his own wooden floors, Leo inched closer to John with a reignited sick smile, his tongue running across his lips like he was being presented with the most delectable of feasts that he couldn't wait to devour. "Yeah _Tom_ , just give him the _fucking_ order." Leo parroted mockingly.

And for some inexplicable reason the coil that had been twisting tighter and tighter in her stomach since the moment she had heard their voices, started to feel almost agonizingly painful at the sound of Tommy's name falling past his mouth, paired with John's battling stance being parried against her brother. The thing of nightmares flooding her senses and leaving her once relatively steady hands beginning to tremble around her smoking gun.

"John, don't." Aurora warned, casting a brief desperatory glance over to Tommy. 

"Ace is right." Marco, interjected before Tommy could utter the words. "That wouldn't be a very smart move on your part." He advised with a kind outward face, despite the ominous tone running underneath his words in the sly game of fatal warnings, that only managed to peak Tommy's interests instead of discourage them. 

"Yeah, and why's that?" Tommy challenged, the smallest quirk of his eyebrow being the only notifiable presence of any sort of reaction that Marco had managed to weasel his way out of the man. "You're standing in _my_ house, in _my_ town." He cocked his head to the side, like the loading of barrels into his revolver, aiming his blue bullets and firing back with, "Maybe that wasn't a very smart move on your part."

Leo cracked a few more chuckles right in John's face, moving his evil-eyed gaze onto Aurora while answering Tommy's question. "Because we're _fucking_ Malandra's."

If it were possible, Aurora thought she could actually hear the particles of the dust dancing through the dense air, as that name, that fucking cursed name, _her_ name, rung out in the silence. Everyone's eyes had already been fixed onto her since the moment that she had walked into this room with the gun raised and pointed at these two strangers that had proclaimed themselves as her family, but now they were looking. _Really looking._ Each shade of those Shelby blue eyes tracing her features and painting them in as that one thing that made her feel the poisonous rise of bile begin to crawl up her throat and watery liquid begin to flood her own hues of blue; an enemy.

She found Tommy's stare in the middle of all the rest, her lips beginning to part as if to offer up some sort of explanation that would make him stop looking at her like _that_. But no words seemed to exit her mouth, all of them being trapped and choked in her body in a barbaric form of punishment she was being shown no mercy towards. She wanted to scream, to cry, to drop this gun away from her hands and close the distance between them until she could hold his face in her grasp and plead for him to offer her his forgiveness. To tell him that she never wished for any of this to happen, that she never wanted his family to be caught in the crossfire between the runaway daughter and the formidable man that had chased her off. And that, whatever this is, whatever had been playing out between them, hadn't been some sort of maniacal plot to infiltrate his underworld like she knew his mind was telling him that it was. 

But even if she grew the courage to be able to utter those hopeless words, the sound of a new intruder's heels clicking against the wooden floors behind her, put a halt to any and all of those plans as a loud exaggerated gasp cut through the emptiness. "You didn't tell them? Now that's just cruel." Aurora spun around on her feet instinctively, all semblance of sadness washed away to be replaced by tumorous rage growing inside of her, as she heard the sound of that devious voice. "Lying to their faces, all this time." Isabella tutted with a mock shake of her head. "And you call us heartless."

"You're awfully brave showing your face to me again." Aurora snarled, taking a step closer to her sister until the barrel of her gun was pressed up against her rotten heart. 

Rolling her eyes, as if there wasn't currently a bullet inches away from being ploughed through her chest, Isabella shrugged off Aurora's comments like that of any quarrel two sisters would seem to have together. "Ugh, still harbouring that silly old thing. Jesus, Aurora, you have to learn to let go." She patronised with a brush of her fingers dismissively, it eliciting a noise from deep within Aurora that she wasn't entirely sure was human, it sounding much too animalistic for that. 

Not allowing the chance for an act of sororicide to take place, Marco was calling back Aurora's attention as he said, "It's only took us a few months to find you, Ace." His voice managing to reach her, over the thumping of her own heartbeat thundering in her ears. "We can do it again, and again and again, and as many times as we need to, but we're bringing you back home. Father's orders." She turned her head over her shoulder, as she watched Marco purposefully switch his stare from her and back in the direction of Tommy once again. "It's just up to you to decide on how many bodies we're leaving behind to do so."

"Was that a threat?" Tommy asked him, with what could be mistaken as a smile coating his lips but Aurora knew better than that, and she was sure with the layer of frost nipping at its corners Marco wasn't having any trouble at distinguishing the difference either. 

"I don't know." Marco humoured, looking back to Aurora with furrowed brows. "Aurora? Was that a threat?" He taunted viciously, and while she wasn't one to be frightened by either Isabella or Leo and their reckless brutality, Marco attained that same gene from their father that left tremors burning the tips of her nerves in scorched frays. 

"I don't take very kindly to threats." Tommy spoke, stopping Aurora from redirecting her weapon to yet another sibling. "You may have your empire, your guns, your soldiers, but not here you don't. Here, you're just two men, and one woman against a room full of Blinders carrying blades in their caps and guns in their hands." He took a step closer, raising his pointed finger over towards the door behind Marco's head. "So I suggest, you do as Aurora has so politely put it and fuck off. She won't be joining you today."

Whilst Tommy and Marco stood against one another, and Aurora was left to watch on with panic wreaking havoc in her body, a long, slow whistle cut through the tension. "You sure have dug your claws deep into that one, haven't you?" Isabella's spiteful tone ridiculed from behind her, her feet circling around Aurora like a hyena entrapping its prey and playing with it's entrails. 

"What'd you do spread your legs open for each of them, or just the one?" Leo added on hatefully, his eyes switching between all the brothers with venom dripping from his pointed fangs. But, if they truly believed that their words could land any sort of impact on her anymore after the scars that they had tattooed on her skin, then they really were as dim-witted as she remembered them to be. 

Though when, Isabella came leaning into her side, her toxic breath hitting the side of her neck, and whispered, "It would be a tragedy for history to repeat itself now, wouldn't it?" Aurora felt every single piece of the structure that had been keeping her upright, crumble into a devastating rubble, very vaguely aware of a sudden wet streak trailing down from her eye and off her chin as her gaze locked onto Tommy's. And then she saw the blood, the bodies, the Church, the dress, his face, her _family's_ faces, everything in an endless mind-numbing loop that felt as if her sister had rather plunged a knife through her back instead. It would have been quite fitting she supposed. 

But then Marco was speaking again, and she was forced back into reality, able to notice that the only blood that was hitting the ground was from the stream leaving Leo's arm, the river of red she had caused. "That's enough, you two. We'll be leaving." Marco announced, their two hound heads rearing back with mouths open wide in protest, that was sufficiently cut off with a stern, "Now." Most certainly their father's son indeed. 

They pulled away ever so slowly, Leo muttering something under his breath to John, that had him squaring his shoulders backwards and bobbing his toothpick rather furiously, as he retreated backwards, his hand moving to clutch his shoulder as he exited into the bright daylight and out of sight. Isabella moving back around to Aurora's front, sending her a wink before she was following in her brother's footsteps. "You're inviting the devil to dance, Mr Shelby, I hope you know that." Were Marco's final words to Tommy, as he too spun on his heel and marched the path back out of the door with one last cautionary glance being spared Aurora's way, until he disappeared into the grey bleakness of Birmingham's streets. 

And so Aurora blinked, and she blinked again, until Tommy was stood in front of her and there was nothing left but for her to look at him and him at her. Her game finally over, no moves left to be made, apart from that one last divine intervention. 

It was time to know the truth. 


	12. Saints and Sinners

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's high time for truths to be revealed

𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐀𝐔𝐑𝐎𝐑𝐀 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐀 𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃, there was a large family crest that used to be hung on the wall just above her bed. A big, grotesque thing, that screamed entitlement and obscene levels of self-importance. A very fitting symbol to be dotted about all over that manor that morphed itself into a chamber of torture. It was in the shape of a shield, like most crests are, and was painted in a rather brutal shade of red that was accented in black veins protruding from the corners like the swirls of darkness you see in the corners of your nightmares. A large gothic 'M' slammed right into the middle while the three heads of Cerberus growl and spit from their stations surrounding the shield. 

But while that image, of demonic dogs lurking above her head, every night she slept, may have been taunting and terrorizing for the young mind of child, Aurora had never so much as flinched at such a sight. Sure, it was intimidating, and made purposefully to instill fear onto those that suffered beneath their Malandra feet, but there wasn't a moment in time she would feel those cold damp shivers wrack up her spine upon looking up to the wall above her bed. Well, not at the dogs at least. 

All family coat of arms come attached with some fancy scroll at the bottom, scribbled in Latin with some phrase or another that should represent your clan, like they were living in the dark ages where battles were fought with brandished steel instead of smoking barrels. And so, on their scroll, were two words, strung together, that had become burned onto the tips of her tongue, as her father forced her recitation at the breaking of each daylight morning and the awakening of each dusk.

Morior invictus. _Death before defeat._

It's all very dramatic, and so very proud, but it still managed to haunt Aurora's every move, like the three-headed hound chomping at her heels with their daggers disguised as teeth. For it meant that, failure was never tolerated, under any circumstance, whether that be for even the smallest of menial tasks, or the things you simply have no control over. Pain and suffering the only thing you were welcomed with on the other side, if such fates ever came to pass. 

So, as she stood, in that Shelby kitchen, empty hands and an empty heart, harsh glares and undiscernable stares narrowed down onto her flesh, the only thing she could seem to picture was that godforsaken family crest and those hellish words that come stitched alongside it. Failure currently scrubbing her skin raw until she was standing bloody and broken in front of the ones she had grew to care for most in this world. 

"You're a Malandra?! A fucking Malandra!" John's hands flapping out wildly, as he paced back and forth and back and forth on the tiled floors. His face having turned a beat red not too long ago, Aurora unsure whether to appoint all this wild rage towards herself or if the words of her volatile older brother were still leaving behind a putrid stain. 

Arthur was much the same as John, just in a surprising turn of being less vocal about it. A few quiet mutters of, "Bloody hell. Oh bloody hell." On a repeated loop being the only noise he was emitting while Aurora was just left to stand by pathetically and watch, using all the might she had left, to resist moving her glassy eyes over towards Tommy, who was looming silent and brooding on the opposite side of the table as her. 

"John, Arthur, shut up!" Polly's sharp voice cut in, putting a halt to the brother's outbursts rather quickly as their wide eyed gazes switched up to the glowering glare she was throwing in their direction. Her hands snatching up the sleek container of smokes from her pocket, and breathing in the nicotine like it was fresh air she was being sorely deprived of. 

But Aurora wasn't paying the trio that much mind, her thoughts lost and adrift on the other storm, rising waves large enough to break the sturdiest of boats in two.

And Aurora had thought she had grown used to many various forms of Tommy's stare. The intrigued, the confused, the enraged, the calculating, that other intense cerulean blue look he has given her on those few rare occasions where their vulnerability had been dropped like the petals of a flower at the beginning of Autumn. But now, right now, as her eyes remained attached to the swirled etchings of the worn down wood, she could feel his glacial stare ripping a hole through her body as that guarded front towered higher than ever before in her presence. The trust that she had proved worthy of, dwindling by the second and leaving behind a hollowness that made her physically _ache._

"Explain. Now." He spoke, a black void of nothingness commanding her, with fatal threats mingled beneath, if any sort of poorly timed joke or cryptic answer was to come instead of the blatant truths. 

Aurora steadied herself with a deep inhale, masking an air of confidence long forgotten whilst attempting at forcing out her next words. Words she had hoped she would never have to say out loud again. "My name, is Aurora Lucia Malandra." That satanic name coming out like a witches' curse, blossoming flames in her stomach as if it were a cauldron. "I am the third born child, and first daughter to Vincent Malandra." She recited carefully, preparing herself for the rest of her twisted tale with the smallest of confessions, they were already well aware of.

They were deathly silent this time, it encouraging Aurora's distant gaze to boldly move upwards until she managed to meet Tommy's eyes, immediately regretting doing so as soon as she had. "The same Vincent Malandra that's running this fucking country?" He asked, but both were clever enough to know he didn't want a response. His voice feeling like shards of ice, jagged along the sides but incredibly pointed at the end, sharp enough to cut through diamonds it seemed. And his volume was resting low and steady for now, resembling a bubbling volcano set to burst. "Fucking cousins to the Sabini's, that same _fucking_ Vincent Malandra?" 

The weight of an anchor dragged Aurora's head down into the smallest of nods, the movement so quick, they might have missed it. But, the sound of shuddering breaths and hands slamming down on tables, so hard that they made her physically flinch, confirmed that they had caught it. 

Tommy remained frozen and unresponsive compared to that of his family however, the smallest twitch of the muscles in his jaw the only indicator that any of what was happening was actually being registered. "And that's the man you ran away from, eh?" He prodded spitefully, in some sort of cruel arrogant show, as if to say, _See, this is why you should have fucking listened to me. Told me when you still had the chance._ Like that would have changed anything, like Tommy Shelby could change the destiny's etched into stone the same way he changed pennies into pounds. Though Aurora refused to rise to the bait, knowing that a screaming match would only end in more empty shell casings and unneeded heartache. So Tommy powered forward with a wave of his hand. "Why? When?"

It was such simple questions. Two words that were brushed along, so easily, so freeing, as if the answers these simple questions were tied to were merely inconsequential and capable of being summarised in a little under fifty characters. And Aurora so wished that that could be true. She would give anything for her crimson background to be neatly packaged in a bundle and thrown away in a couple of compact ramblings. But the truth was ugly and foul and so scattered with thorns that she presumed even excavating them from her mouth would leave her insides tattered and torn to shreds. 

So, Aurora thought it best to start from any rational beginning, clearing her throat rather violently, and shakily walking around the chair in front of her until she could carefully lower herself into it. "Father's beat their children, it's nothing special, nothing surprising. Your father didn't exactly look like any Saint." It was a throw away statement, Aurora told herself as she said it out loud, revolting against the emotions that so nearly caught slip. "He would avoid our faces mostly, didn't want to destroy the image he created for those fancy toffs he had bowing down by his feet, directed his blows to other areas." She continued, eyes remaining downcast onto the table, in fear of the expressions, or lack thereof, coating each and everyone of their faces, until the tap tap tapping of her nails against the grains of wood caught her attention. 

She lifted her hand up in the air slightly, almost as if to inspect it, flexing and clenching the fingers a few times as the faint, almost inaudible, crack echoed in the dense air. "He's fractured every single one of the bones in my hand, cracked a few ribs, sliced and cut me deep enough to have me bedridden for months on end." She recounted off with a shrug, "Said I reminded him of my late mother. Same hair, same eyes. Would hit my sister because she was the child who was born on the eve she passed. And my brothers because they needed to toughen up, needed them to be battle ready for when their real enemies came, he said." Spurts of red clouded her vision, and drowned out the background noise as her eyes took a certain lifelessness she hadn't mirrored since being in those marble sculpted rooms. "It was brutal, and enough for many of us to crack. But I didn't, not at that."

Growing courage from the depths of despair, Aurora looked to Tommy once again, spotting the faintest remarks of empathy or understanding or _something,_ hidden behind the mask of indifference controlling the rest of his stubborn features. She felt herself soldiering forward down the repressed memories of childhood, without even realising her mouth had opened again to speak, words seeming to spill out of her like an addict getting a taste of their euphoria and never being able to stop. "When we grew older, he trained us. Trained us with knives, guns, our fists. Pitted us against one another, until the loser laid on the ground bloodied and beaten by their own siblings hand. Made the victor proud of the brutality and cruelty they had caused with just that right amount of affection he'd give you, so that it had you thirsting for more." Her eyes dancing over the line of Shelby brothers with a sting of envy turning her green as she looked towards something she had never owned. "The familial bonds we had created as children were torn apart, as we grew to hate one another, until we grew excited at the sight of the others blood staining the floor beneath our feet." 

Men who were tainted by war were easy enough to spot, they had this ghostly shroud scorched into their retinas and the tightest pinch in the utmost corner of their lips. For, they had sinned for the freedom of others, slaughtering their fellow man, _murdering_ boys young enough that they had yet to taste the sweet sublime of a woman's love. They had witnessed enough horrors in those four years that the most wretched of thoughts barely sent a ripple through their conscious. But Aurora could see the disgust now. 

She saw the furrowed brows and twitching mouths, that slight crease above their cheekbones from their narrowed eyes. Tommy of course kept it cool, and Polly's face resembled something quite more shaken than the others, her hand coming up to cover her mouth as she turned away from them all and faced the wall. Aurora watching her back with a solo tear trailing down her cheek. "More than enough reason for me to flee." Her voice catching ever so slightly on the shaky syllables. 

"But you didn't."

Tommy's interjection had her moving back to him, always back to him. Like she was caught on some type of string that always ended with those crystalline cornflowers resting on a bed of crisp lines, and she wasn't able to cut its ties. Unable to _want_ to cut its ties. Because he knew her, without really knowing her. And nowadays no one really knows her. So while others would pray for her story to end, Tommy knew that it was far from over. Despite, the slick liquid building up a flood on the bottom of her eyes, a soft saddened smile crossed her rose petal lips at that. "No, I didn't. Because at my darkest moment, when I felt that I couldn't descend any lower into the pits of hell...I met him." 

The man with the curly brown locks, and blue eyes with strokes of green splattered throughout. The man with the warming hearty laughter that vibrated through his entire body as he would hold her close and she would whisper a shrewd joke in his ear. The man that would kiss the pebbles of her skin when they laid together under screwed up bedsheets and hot layers of love and lust. The man who broke her heart. 

"He was training to be a doctor, as ironic as that might be. So exceedingly smart, and handsome enough that he had many women falling over themselves whenever he would flash them all his charming smile. I wasn't much different." She said with a burst of fondness lighting up features. "And for whatever reason, he persisted in trying to win my heart. Tried and tried and tried to take me out to fancy restaurants and escort me to his high society balls. Sent me dozens of roses, every single day." She ranted off, briefly catching Polly's gaze as the older woman crossed the room to take the seat by her side, still looking deeply pained but masking it behind a wash of sympathetic understanding. "And no matter how many times I declined, or threw his flowers away, he won, and I fell for him. Completely, irreversibly fell for him." She told Polly, like how teenage girls do, rushing to tell their mothers they've fallen in love with the man of their dreams for the very first time. 

"And your father? How did he react to your suitor?"

The smile that had been gracing her face quickly fell after Polly's question, a brute force of reality hitting her as hard as it did back then as it was now. At a time, when she was living in the fantasies of a romantic Shakespeare play without paying attention to the tragedies written in the final act. "I kept him as my secret for as long as I could. Used whatever tricks my father had taught me, to be discreet, to evade curious eyes. And it worked, for a while at least." Polly wordlessly reached over the table and grabbed ahold of Aurora's twitching fingers then, holding them tightly as a sheen of her own tears seemed to waver on the precipice of falling. 

"And one night, I told Henry everything, told him of the pain and the darkness that my own family was inflicting upon me and onto so many others. What _I_ had done, under the orders of my father." The feeling of blood coating her hands becoming all too real in that moment, but Polly didn't let her pull them out of their hold to check for the delusions. So Aurora settled herself with another breath that did barely anything against the rising tide threatening to pull her under. "I half expected him to leave me right then and there, go find some other rich girl to spend his efforts on. But, he stayed and got down on one fucking knee like a bloody lunatic." Her mind pictured that lovestruck fools face as he looked up to her, holding out that ring he claimed to have carried with him since the moment after they first met. Sentimentality tickling like a rose bud growing in her stomach would. "And stuck in some fairytale, I said yes, despite all my better judgement." She scoffed with a shake of her head.

"We made a plan after that. We were to get married in a small private ceremony with only his close family and loved ones permitted, and sail for America the same day." Aurora explained, and even saying those simple words out loud made her want to put a bullet in her own foot for all the idiocies her younger self seemed to carry with her. "It wasn't that thought out and rather basic of a plan, but it provided me with the hope that I was going to be able to start anew, leave my sins in the past to be never looked on again."

If her grip on Polly's hands had grown to a painful measure, the older woman made no fuss about it, instead continuing her soothing strokes with her thumb over the jumping pulse beating at the speed of a hummingbird's heartbeat underneath Aurora's skin. "I was stupid and naive to believe it would ever work. To believe that I was capable enough to outsmart my father. Because he knew, the whole bloody time, he knew." She seethed, anger running down in tears that burned her cheeks and left them leaving a scorched trail of red. "So when I was stood on that alter, in my white fucking wedding dress, my fairytale was ripped away from me in a matter of seconds." Her words starting to become choked as they lodged in her throat and refused to budge.

"They left him alive. Left him alive to suffer in agonising pain. Because all around us, all over that fucking church, was the bodies of the people that Henry loved most. All of them dead. Slit throats, bashed in skulls, bodies scattered with bullets. Every single one." Aurora could almost smell the death that lingered in the air that dreadful day, the same one that had poisoned her blood and left her with this dull pain reverberating in the pits of her body every now and again. "And while I stood there, with my brothers holding me back, screaming, crying, _pleading_ for them to stop, my father and sister pinned Henry down to the ground and scarred his face. As if he needed any sort of reminder for the horror of that day to be imprinted on his skin." 

Sometimes when Aurora was alone and two thirds down a bottle of whiskey or gin, she would run her finger down her left cheek, tracing scars that weren't there but felt like they were just the same. Would look in the mirror that hung on her wall and see if she was bleeding, see if a sharpened blade had ran down her face that day and left a vile mark, matching the one bruised and battered on her bones. She never saw anything, never felt any indents from wounds long ago healed, but she would still continue that same routine from time to time, unsure whether or not she was hoping that one day it would be there in some backwards logic work of penance she believed she deserved. 

Aurora didn't even remember telling herself to do it now. Didn't register slipping one of her hands from Polly's grip and using her thumb to check the skin of her face, for it only to meet a wet and smooth surface underneath. She wasn't looking at any of them either while she was doing it, but their stares were heavy enough to know that they were all still there. Waiting, watching. 

"I haven't seen him since." She croaked finally, in a time that seemed to be passing by like sticky tar dripping to the ground. "I know that he survived the war, became a doctor, has a wife, got the life he deserved. But, because of his affections towards me, he lost every single person he ever cared about." Her admittance feeling like a death sentence, resonating in the air with the grim notions of the Grim Reaper's cloak covering the room in black and dragging them all to the depths. 

"How did you run, Aurora?" Tommy asked again after a sufficient pause. 

"With all the men being shipped off to France, my brothers and father were of no exception, I'd say it was their pride amongst all else. But, no matter, as soon as I had my chance, I stole as much money as I could carry and fled as fast as I could." Her eyes trailing back upwards to Tommy, with much too many emotions swimming around in her normal blue to pinpoint. "I know what this means for you all. With your troubles with the Inspector and your fight with Kimber, you can't start another war with the Italians as well." She stated adamantly, no room left to argue because no matter how ambitious she knew Tommy to be, he was no reckless fool that jumped into battle ruled on the basis of his compassion. "I never wanted to put any of you in danger. If there's anything to take away from what I've just told you, it's that." 

Polly hands wove themselves into an inescapable lock around Aurora then, drawing her back into the fierce onyx flames of her stare before Aurora was given a chance for her last sentiments to truly settle into the room. "We'd be damned if you think we're giving you back to that family." She spat. "Isn't that right, Thomas?" She called without turning her head over to look at him.

Aurora, mouth open ready to protest, turned to look at Tommy, hoping that he would see sense. But instead, he just cleared his throat and said, "That's right, Pol."

Shocked being a word she didn't even believe was suitable for a reaction such as this one, Aurora just gaped at the cold wildebeest Thomas Shelby projects himself as, searching for words that struggled to appear. "I'm not allowing you to make that decision." She sputtered in a last ditch effort. 

"You're not allowing me, eh?" He questions with a quirk of his eyebrow, that relaxed twist of his features he put on whenever they would pass teasing remarks to one another appearing. "You forget that you're my employee. There's a contract in place." He brushed off so easily, so calmly, Aurora was struggling to keep up. All her previous beliefs over Tommy's steady head when it comes to plans and takedowns of his enemies, becoming lost at this new act of foolhardy impulsiveness he was embodying.

"Tommy-"

"No, you've talked, now it's time to listen." He interrupts with a wave of his hand, closing the gap between them and moving to the seat on her other side. He leant forward until his arm was able to rest on the back of her chair, so close to her that she could inhale the cigarette smoke that still clung to his clothes from his morning fag. "I don't care if your father's the bloody King of England, alright? We're moving up in the world Aurora, and once Kimber is dead, all that is his will become ours." His right hand gesturing out wildly in time with his dream-like words. "The Peaky Blinders aren't scared of any wops, ain't that right boys?" He called over his shoulder. 

"That's fucking right, Tom." Arthur agreed without the space for a single breath. His body straightening up as he grinded his teeth to a sharp razor's edge. 

"I've never been one to turn down a fight. We'll make them all bleed." John added on, rounding his hands around his cap, jostling at the idea of war the same as if it were a fat slab of Sunday Roast served on a silver platter.

Aurora eyes jumped between each of the Shelby brothers, before settling on Tommy and his stubborn eyes boring into her. "It won't be enough." She pleaded weakly, a single tear running down her skin. 

"Then, we'll make it enough. I won't stop Aurora, not until he's buried six feet under." His callused hands coming up to catch the tear, wiping it away as he cupped her face in a gentle hold. "This, is what the great Tommy Shelby does for the damsel in distress." 

~~~ 

Polly had taken her home not too long ago, huddled her up tight against her chest and locked them behind her scarlet red door after the tears had dried and no more words of comfort could be shared. Tommy had watched her go, watched as his brothers stormed out the same door, after he had dished them with orders to round up the rest of the boys and check the city to make sure there wasn't any more rats in the sewers. He had sat there and waited for quite a while it seemed, the light streaming in from the windows having turned to that burnt yellow glow before he moved from the rickety chair and into his office, business calling his attention like a needy lover. 

But as he sat in his cushioned seat behind his desk, struck up a cigarette that balanced between his fingers, his mind offered him no rest on Aurora Malandra. 

Malandra. 

Fuck. _Fuck_.

His mother always used to say that he had a penchant for trouble, that his love for wild horses was because he was a wild horse himself. He rode fast but not without sense, always leaping over fences and ducking under low hanging branches without breaking stride. And, it was a fair enough statement, for he did bring a sufficient amount of grief onto his mother's doorstep from time to time, but Tommy tried not to dwell on it. I mean, if he really thought about it, what young boy growing up in Small Heath wasn't getting those same nagging words being thrown at them in some variation to the other. 

Tommy sucked in a deep inhale of his cigarette, licking up the smoke the same way he did in those trenches, the same way he did more and more nowadays with the growing risk that he could walk out those doors and never make it back in. Greedy and final. Bullets etched with his name, Chief Inspector's making threats, Kings walking into his bar loaded with guns, bombs hidden under seats waiting for his arrival. A band of brothers and sister walking into his home and throwing about threats as easy as they were throwing about smiles. 

Yep, death was a funny thing. He had learnt not to fear it. Not since he had been buried alive in the mud like an overeager grave digger having jumped the gun on his time of death and wanted to see to it, before his time was up. His nails having dug into soil and his lungs inhaled the Earth as he wretched and fought against impending doom, until sunlight broke his fight and he made it up to the land of the living, only to be welcomed to another fight against humanity. No rest for the saints and sinners. 

He had lost apart of himself in France, and he was okay with that. _Okay_ , maybe being too nice a word for it, perhaps _accepting_ being a better way of putting it. 

But it was strange to see that same morbid taint in someone as hypnotic as she was, that same fearlessness of their lasting survival being of no concern to them. Because, everything about her, had men and women alike snagged onto her heel, drool probably having to be wiped off her shoes every night she comes home. It was enough for him to become drawn in, despite the fog and the dirt and the grime that clouded his fucked up mind. 

He supposed he should have better prepared himself for her secret to be as outlandish as she was, prepared not just for some jilted ex lover who couldn't fathom letting her go, or some plain banker's father that drank a little too much and hit that little bit harder. She had warned him of that on numerous occasions, but he had business taking up room in his mind. Always business. And he didn't always want to think of business when he was with her, even though most of their conversations always led back to that. Always fucking business. 

Tommy begun to feel the heat crawling up the length of his cigarette, but he didn't think much of it. His unresponsive eyes remaining on the wall in front of him. 

Malandra was a big name. Dangerous name. One that he had learnt long ago. Their outreach, their lands, titles, businesses, money, partnerships, lordships, knighthoods. All of it. It practically being in the criminal undergrounds literature that all budding young deviants should educate themselves on if they want to make it up in the world. They were a legacy, a family stretching out for generations with rich Italian roots that had somewhat become docile in the midst of English traditions of standards for elegance and refinement with the upper class.

In a long long line of ambitious takedowns Tommy's mind had conducted, there had been Vincent Malandra's name sketched out. The whens and hows not quite thought of just yet, as his primary focus stays on the first enemy at hand at what prizes he could reap out of their cold dead hands. But he was there, and Tommy had one day planned to rule his kingdom and bring his family name into that same world of respectability and legitimess that the Malandra's reigned from. Just not today. 

Not when their men were still fresh from war, and only enough of them to load one Jerry truck. Or when he had stolen guns and Irish Inspector's, communist family members, deadbeat fathers, the IRA, and Billy bloody Kimber to deal with. If he had any common sense or thoughts of preservation then he would leave it be. Slip some more cash into her hands and send her off on her way with the best of luck and good intentions. But Polly has been fighting him recently on his lack of common sense. 

When Aurora told her story, of the abuse, of the torment, of the god awful horrible fucking deal she was dealt with for her life, Tommy felt the rage and anger and betrayal that had been ticking away at him since that brute of a brother spat out her last name, quell into pity. Because, yes, even the cold monstrous Thomas Shelby can still feel those human emotions of pity and empathy and all those other fucking things that make up just about anyone else on this Earth. 

And then she started to cry. And her eyes looked so fucking blue when she cried. Greta used to tell him that same thing when they were drunk in love and he wasn't too stunted then to let those he cares for allow to see that type of fragility from him. He had tracked the way that the tears trailed down her cheeks and dripped down her chin, the way that they left the normal porcelain turn to a cherry red. And she looked magnetic. Horrifically so, because no one should look that alluring while they were talking about poison and drenched in tears. 

So that pity turned into rage once again, only this time he saw that bastard's face at the end of his gun, felt the relief of pulling back that trigger and watching the life drain from him as easily as how the night drained the light from the day. Her siblings falling down like dominos behind the patriarch. 

She started to talk about someone else then, while he was so caught up on murder, and she smiled when she did. Smiled brighter than he had ever seen her smile before, despite the tears that clung to her butterfly lashes or the horror that she had just recounted to them all only moments prior. And Tommy wasn't any idiot, he's seen first hand, men of all different stations try their hand at winning her heart, watched as she would politely stir them away and onto a more reachable target. Pair that with the confidence she exudes every time she leant into their flirtations, not backing away from their close proximities or daring touches, her skill could only have come with some sort of practice. 

He was too proud to admit to himself, or to anyone else, that he may have felt a stab of something or other while hearing her gush and glee about another man nonetheless. But he preferred thoughts of murder and chaos, of death and pain, takedowns and expansions compared to that of pointless tyrades of desire and wanting. 

Long before she had finished speaking Tommy had decided, decided over her loyalties, of her name, of lies and truths, and he didn't even need Polly's prompt, for him to be telling Aurora that he would stick to his promises and head straight into the belly of war for her. John and Arthur jumping quick at the chance, not that that was much a question, since a part of him was pretty sure that both of his brother's had fallen under the girl's charms like everyone else had, long ago.

So with it all stuck in stone, there was only one thing left that Tommy had to do. He just needed to think. Think think think. 

But he never had time to fucking think, did he?

Tommy pulled out his shining pocket watch with a start, stubbing out the blunt cigarette in his hands and wiping off the ash that had collected on the tips of his fingers. Cursing inwardly at the time and the business that was set up with that fucking Fenian, that thought himself plucky enough to steal those fucking stolen guns away from him and write him off in the process. So, moving up to his feet, Tommy was out the door of his office in a flash, his black coat billowing in the air, smoke from a new cigarette filling his lungs and the clink of his gun rattling about in his holster being his gangster's melody. 

Always _fucking_ business. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so...writing is hard. I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter because it was really hard for me and I'm desperately in need for some ego boosting so I don't have a mental breakdown over here. Aurora's past was something I worked really hard on formulating and I hope that it wasn't too predictable or lazy or idk I'm just super nervous about this chapter after everyone's response to the last one so I would very much appreciate your honest thoughts. Anyway see you next time lovelies


	13. Insomnia's Lullaby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aurora can't sleep. Neither can Tommy.

So this was it.

This was what it felt like. To be free of the burden of secrets. No longer feel the weight of a thousand words locked around her ankles, dragging her further and further down into the pits of isolation. To wrap her tongue around the truth and spew it at the feet of their leather shoes, and watch as their faces contort and grimace at the end of each of her confessions like she was a viper spitting venom rather than a girl speaking horrors. This is was what was promised to her. This.

Christ, Aurora needed a drink(s).

She had managed to convince Polly - an incredibly miraculous feat in itself - to allow her some alone time, away from anyone's watchful eyes or passive comments, so that she could process the day's... _events,_ with a sound and clear mind. And the only way one could process a long line of emotional trauma brought on through years of familial torture and the loss of loved ones, with a sound and clear mind, was undoubtedly at the end of a rather large and rather luxurious, bottle of Small Heath's very own Garrison liquor.

And so, by the time that Aurora had battled through the iced glass doors of the pub, throwing them aside hard enough to assume that they were the ones responsible for all the hurt buried in her bones, black had taken over from the grey, the clocks ticking down the hours continuously like nothing was amiss. The world was still spinning, no hellfire raining down from the heavens, no plagues or famine stealing souls any more than the usual death toll, everything was running perfectly normal. So, why on Earth, did it feel like Aurora was walking on an axis?

Grace had a cigarette hanging loosely from her lips, head firmly planted in the books, and one curious eye peeking up from underneath her lashes as the thunderous sound of Aurora's heels banging against the wood covered in grime, came storming right in front of her.

"Gin. A lot of it." Aurora told her. And, there was a split second, where she watched Grace consider telling her that they were closed, that the pub's endless tap of liquid courage was stalled for the evening, but she seemed to encourage better sense than that after one careful sweep of Aurora's stone-faced features, replying with a short hurried nod instead.

Aurora pulled out a cigarette from her pocket, whilst Grace turned to grab the bottle from the top shelf. "Bad day?"

Sucking up all the fire and ash she possibly could, Aurora released a humourless chuckle, the smoke being breathed out her nose as if she were a dragon. A dragon, crimson red, stripped clean of all its scales she was sure. "And it hasn't even ended yet." She cheersed, lifting up her now full glass that Grace had set it front of her, and tipping it comically before she inhaled the contents all in one go. And now she supposed she truly was a dragon, a belly full of molten heat burning everything and anything it likes. Just because it can. Just because it wants.

"Care to tell all your troubles to a barmaid." Grace queried with that sweet smile, a tiny little one, but still so fucking sweet all the same. Sweeter than her gin. And it made Aurora wonder what reason there could possibly be to be so _fucking_ sweet all the time. "It is my job." She added with a roll of her eyes at Aurora's narrowing suspicious stare.

Taking her time, Aurora sucked in another intake of her cigarette, letting Grace just fester under her heavy gaze, a trick she had actually recently adopted from Tommy, and it always worked so well for him. Everything worked out so very very well for him. Though, perhaps that was all because of his painfully blue eyes, surely a Romany spell that had been cast over him when he was born, siphoning the most intense flavour of blue from the deepest of oceans and sticking it right on his face, for everyone to marvel and melt at. Not that Aurora took much to believing in witchcraft and all the fundamentals that run amok alongside it, but for him, she would surely believe anything.

"You're a mystery that I still haven't been able to crack, Grace." She finally said, and there was a brief flash of caution that passed in Grace's eyes at that. But, Aurora was in no mood to play detective, so she just pushed her glass over to the barmaid, and Grace diligently filled it up once again. "Granted the likes of Tommy Shelby does keep me distracted from time to time." She flippantly brushed off, going back to smoking peacefully and taking smaller sips of her gin.

The tension that had been coiling in Grace's whole demeanour relaxed slightly, a light smile taking its place once again. "Coming from the woman who doesn't even have a last name, I really must have achieved something." She joked, friendly enough, but her words were dusted with ice harsh enough to extinguish a dragon's flames, whether purposefully or not.

Tapping off her cigarette, Aurora cleared her throat. "Yeah, well, it turns out my past didn't want to stay buried after all." She sniped back with a sarcastic tug of a smile.

Before Grace could undoubtedly berate her with an endless supply of questions, the front doors of the pub were once again being pushed through, the brass handles ricocheting off the walls like bullets fired into the night. And of course he was there, long coat flapping, blue eyes striking, gun clacking. "Good, you're here." Tommy appraised, striding into the pub hot and fast, with his eyes zeroing in on Aurora for a breathe, flicking upwards to Grace the next. He waved his hand at her dismissively, as he made it to Aurora's side. "Grace, leave the keys, and head home early for the night. Me and Aurora will lock up."

"Are you expecting trouble?"

Tommy just looked at her with that heavy deadpan business attire of his, not letting it linger for too long, much too in a hurry for that kind of time wasting. "Grace, go home." He ordered, and this time thankfully, she listened, reaching into her pocket for the key and letting it drop onto the counter with a _ping_.

As soon as the doors swung closed with a certain finality, Aurora was left with nothing to do but wait on Tommy, wait as he checked his shiny golden pocket watch, wait as he pulled out his gun casually to check its rounds, wait as she watched him take one last visible breath, wait on his orders, _wait wait wait._ And then he met her eyes and said, "When the St. Andrew's bell strikes midnight, two IRA men are gonna come through that door. When they have what they want, they plan to kill me. It's your job to stop that from happening."

And Tommy waited for her reaction, a flurry of questions and worries and this and that, but instead, Aurora just breathed out a sigh of relief, a small smile stretching on her lips. "Thank God, I thought you were here to talk."

Rolling his eyes, Tommy moved to the stacked chairs on the tables, pulling three down and setting them up. "They want to meet here alone."

"And yet here I am." Aurora chirply replied, for whatever reason, her forearms leaning back on the bar behind her as she she watched him move about. Perhaps extreme fatigue, emotional onslaught and two full glasses of gin on an empty stomach was a poor choice, but in all fairness Aurora didn't really think her night would be taking such a murderous turn. She probably should have, given what the daylight hours had brought her. "It's unlike you, Tommy, to be breaking the rules." She teased with a cheshire grin.

Moving on fast feet, Tommy was in front of her again, holding onto both sides of her face until her cheeks were beginning to feel as if they were squished. "Aurora, I need you focused. I sent Grace home and kept you here for the simple reason that I trust you." And if there was anything that Tommy could have said to her, that would have sent her into a state of sobriety so quickly, than it was most definitely that. Her shoulders straightening, arms falling down by her sides. "And now, I know you've got a pretty decent shot." He added with a shadow of a smirk that earned him a huff of her airy laughter. "When you've not been drinking gin that is."

"One glass." She deadpanned, a small little lie for appearances sake, but he could probably tell. She knew he could tell.

"Now, you're gonna be in that back room. And I'm going to be sitting there. When I make a toast, you're gonna come out with that thing raised. You don't shoot, you just point. I'll do the rest." He explained while he practically shoved the gun into her chest like it didn't have the ability to blow a hole through either of their bodies. 

Aurora ignored the heavy feeling of having the weapon in her hands once again, ignored the memory of her brother's blood dripping onto the betting dens floors, ignored the the flash of his angered face popping up in her conscious. Focusing on Tommy instead. "Is this what you were meeting with Campbell for?" She asked him, before he had a chance to walk away, and a singular brow of his arched up. "Since I wasn't warned about my family's abrupt arrival, I made some inquiries about any other things I might have missed."

She could tell he wanted to ask her about it, how she knew, how they knew, he had already learnt all of her other secrets, this was simply the last piece of her puzzle, and Tommy wasn't the type of person who left things half finished. But, time wasn't a luxury they had to spare, so Tommy just blew out another sigh, like this was all so very taxing, and walked to stand behind her, lifting up her arm until the gun was extended at their eye level. "Look, just hold this up, like I've seen you do." Now Aurora could easily tell him that his help was most definitely not needed, that today would have proven as much, but she appreciated the warmth of his body pressed up against her back more than she valued her pride, so she let him indulge her. Then the large clangs of St Andrew's Church ran out and Tommy let go. "Alright. Go, go."

Aurora hurried off in her heeled feet, ducking behind the slightly ajar door that covered her from view, hearing the faint sounds of doors opening, chairs scratching against the floor, liquid sloshing into glasses, words being passed back and forth, none of it too exceedingly pleasant. Though, despite the distractions that should be yielding all of her undivided attention, Aurora found it impossible to ignore the sleek steel touch of the gun's body encased in her sweaty palms. The cold bite of the bullets making a dim noise at the sound of her re-adjusting her grip. And all it did was remind her of all the other times she has held a gun aimed at the head of another, of the scar that runs a long line curving across her ribs, the mark on her hip bone of a hit that was taken just the wrong way, the rotating click of her ankles if she walked on the balls on her feet instead of her toes, her wedding dress, his black suit, the knives, the guns, her brothers, his brothers, her father, his mother, the blood, the blood. It was a surprise at all that she could hear Tommy say, "To the damsels in distress." over the loud humming echoing in her ears. 

Then she walked out the hideaway, gun raised, aimed right at that smarmy smile that hadn't quite clocked her appearance just yet, and fired. Just because she can. Just because she wants. 

It was rather like a movie playing at the pictures, the dead guys partner reaching into his coat for another gun before Tommy lunged from his chair and tried to tackle it out of his hands. Their bodies tangled up against each other so confusingly Aurora couldn't quite make out where one of them started and the other one ended. It all muddling together in a sea of fuzzy gin waters and black cord coats. She was still aiming her gun, switching her stance back and forth between the tumbling bodies, itching to pull the trigger but both terrified of making another person bleed. She wasn't given much of a choice in the end, as a hand came out from the tousled limbs and smacked her so hard her vision went white for a split second, and then she was on the ground next. And a small part of her rich girl mind cringed just a little, because these floors were ever so dirty. 

However she quickly remembered the pain blooming across her cheek like paint lighting up a blank canvas and the struggling signs of a dying man coming from just behind her crumpled body, a _thump thump thump_ of something metal slamming down onto something squelching and malleable. So, Aurora pressed her palms down onto the floor, and pushed herself up, turning around to see the raving raging beast of a man bringing down a golden spittoon down again and again and again until Aurora wasn't sure if the thing on the floor was a man any longer, having been degraded down to a red disfigured pound of flesh with no discernable features, and no pulse.

She wasn't scared of him, not of the laden animal that scratched beneath his surface of finely cut suits, and perfectly groomed hair. She should have been. She knew she should've. But she wasn't. So she just climbed to her feet steadily, face calm and neutral, or at least she hoped, despite the flaring mark rouging her cheeks the way that little girls do when putting on makeup for the first time, waiting for Tommy and his heavy breathing to cool. 

But when he finally did manage to tear himself away from the carcass on the ground, Tommy staggered over to her on shaky legs, hands latching onto Aurora's face like it was the only thing that could keep him from falling. "Why did you shoot?" His voice raw and cracked and so lacking of any shield that she had gotten used to, and his eyes, fuck his eyes were bleeding just as profusely as that body on the ground was, that she couldn't bring herself to maintain their contact for very long, dropping them down to somewhere else, anywhere else, instead. Though, insistent hands refused to let her bow out so easily. "Aurora, look at me. Why did you shoot?"

_The knives, the guns, her brothers, his brothers, her father, his mother, the blood, the blood._

Aurora shook her head desperately, feeling the tears, hating herself for it, because God she _hated_ crying and somehow lately that is all she has been doing. "I see what he did to me every time I close my eyes, Tommy." Pools leaking down her eyes and mixing with the red crusts sticking to her jawline from the place Tommy held her. "I can't go back. I can't go back." She pleaded in hysteria, like he had any control over it, and maybe he did but she wished that he didn't. 

"Shh, shh, you're here with me." He soothed, and if Aurora wasn't stuck in some bottomless pit then she may have taken a moment to be shocked at this rare glimpse of humanity he was showing her after such acts of brutality. But then he was saying, "I'll keep you safe. I'll keep you safe." on repeat, like a kind of mantra, that broke down the dams and left her folding into him, hands locking round his neck while his traveled around her back. As if he wasn't some cutthroat gangsta with bloody hands and neither was she. 

A familiar creaking of the Garrison's swinging doors, snapped Tommy away from Aurora fast enough though, his dark brooding storms of eyes raging at the coppers slowly trickling into the pub. His feet speeding away from Aurora before she could reach out and stop him. "You were supposed to come on the sixth chime. You were supposed to come on the fucking sixth chime!" He shouted loud enough, but none of the men in black and blue flinched, Aurora even thought she saw one of them smiling, a brief hidden one covered by a hand as him and his partner crowded around the _thing_ on the floor. "They refused to surrender. They fought well. They were brave men."

"Well, he looks like he was killed by a wild fucking animal. Still, this never happened. They were never here. Who cares?" Moss brushed off and he wasn't so scared to show his shark tooth smile. Still brief, but long enough that Aurora could see Tommy catalogue it in his mind and save it for later. 

"Get the bodies out of here."

"Ah right, are they making the lady uncomfortable?" He prodded still, the perfect example of a man who did not know how to quit when he was ahead. And Aurora shot him a icy glare, enough for anyone to crumble, storming closer to Moss, only for Tommy's arms to pop out and catch her before she could get too close, so she simply spat her venom by his feet, to show him just how uncomfortable the lady truly was. "Right. I'll leave you two lovebirds to it then, eh?" He shuffled, his officers dragging the empty shells of men out the door, with him following in their stead. 

Aurora breathed in the air of the empty pub like she hadn't taken a second to do so, since the beginning of this entire ordeal, twisting her body in Tommy's arms, only for her head to fall onto his shoulder. Exhausted. Absolutely exhausted. "Come back with me." He murmured into her hair, his hot breath tickling the the hairs on the back of her neck. "I haven't seen John or Arthur, since I sent them out to check the city. I don't want you alone. And you don't want to be alone." Aurora felt herself nodding her head along, pretty sure he could have come out with whatever reason he liked and she would still be giving him the same answer. 

Fuck. 

So this was it.   
  
  


~~~  
  
  


Twelve. That was the number of cracks, broken into the cement ceiling of Ada's bedroom. Aurora knew this because she had counted them all. Twice.

While her body protested with the whines and pleads for the relief of slumber, Aurora's mind stayed whirling in corrosive shades. No comfort was seeming to be enough to lull her into complacency, not the soft silk of Ada's nightgown nor the warm knitted blanket shielding her from the cold nip of the room, and not even the sweet aroma of berry perfume still cemented into her pillow from the previous bedfellow. All of it being eviscerated by the day's images burning in hot flashes behind her retinas.

Sharp smiles, dead-eyed stares, guns firing, blood dripping. Around and around it goes.

So there she stayed, laid on her back, hands clasped over her stomach, her index finger drumming a steady beat in time to the bobbing of her foot bouncing under the sheets, all while her blue cat-like eyes were staring up to the cracked ceiling, internally debating with herself whether she should go for the lucky third try.

Maybe she was hoping that all the raw edges would eventually snake themselves around the beige painted wall until they were tied and knotted together in the shape of some sort of entrancing image that would ultimately trick her wired thoughts into calming down and succumbing to the emptiness of sleep. Just another futile fantasy to add onto the ever growing list that never seemed to disparage, no matter her practical mind.

Blowing out a heavy sigh, Aurora pulled back the sheets, a gust of chilly breeze rising goosebumps on her bare limbs that had her reaching for Ada's robe clumsily draped over a chaise, wrapping it around herself and teetering on the frozen floorboards biting her feet. Crossing the room as gently and quickly as she could make it, Aurora carefully peeled open the door and went tiptoeing down the stairs, conscious to the other sleeping bodies behind the thin walls.

She supposed she shouldn't have been surprised, when she made it to the final step of the staircase only to find him there, sitting and smoking, a sweating class of mud-coloured liquid within arms length on the kitchen table. And yet, it still managed to bring her to a pause. Because well, he always seemed to have that effect on her, intentional or not. Never surprising her, but always catching her off guard. A weird inexplicable occurrence that Aurora was sure that if she tried to describe to anyone else who had not had the chance to be stuck in the same room as him, then she would likely be deemed as clinically insane. Though, perhaps she was, and this wasn't anything to do with Thomas Shelby and more about her tainted mind, and the scar tissue spreading like a tumor inside of her, infecting everything in sight.

"Couldn't sleep?" She called out to him, her voice silky and soft but the deaf kitchen's noise still carried it to his ears all the same, as he turned his head ever so slightly to the side and met her eyes. Neither surprised nor caught off guard, but that was to be expected, because Tommy was rarely ever those two things.

He had heard her coming from the moment that her toes had touched the floor of course, a soldier's hearing always being capable of picking up the faintest of noises with tactical precision. A necessary evil in order for one's survival, for if it meant that the smallest of sounds could blare in his ears like the banging of a war drum, then the bombs booming around the fields were like firecrackers bursting into bold technicolours, both deafening and demanding to be heard all at the same time.

And then there were the shovels.

He was staring at her for a long time now, perhaps too long without saying a single word, but Aurora didn't shake, simply stared back at him from across the dimly lit room, soaking in the shadows dancing across his face. "It seems not." He hoarsely responded, like a cart's tires crunching against the gravel roads. The low Brummie drawl only becoming more pronounced, more defined, more cutthroat with every word, and Aurora felt another rise of goosebumps blossoming across her skin.

"Would your insomnia want some company?" Her legs already guiding her further into the room as the dark blues of her nightgown made a faint swishing against her skin. Tommy's lazy fatigued hand waving at the chair beside him as he invited her presence the same way the night sky invites the shimmering stars. So, Aurora lowered herself down onto it, leaning a singular elbow onto the table as she reached for the glass of whiskey only half drunk, but judging by the empty bottle not so well hidden on the corner of the table, it was safe to assume that this wasn't the Shelby man's first drink of the night.

Washing the tingles and flares across her tongue and down her throat in one practiced swig, Aurora felt the dark brooding whiskey mingle with the honeyed aftertaste of gin still hiding in the pockets of her gums. _Sugar and spice, and everything nice_. Mulling the taste stuck between her teeth over and over again, Aurora studied the glass in her hand, the same way that Tommy was studying her. "You were right." She answered, the unasked question. "I do have better whiskey."

It only appeared in brief glimmers, but she caught the smile that didn't much reflect on his lips, the amusement cracking his face in small fractures, that an untrained eye would fail to spot. "Never said it was better. Only that it was good." He parried, taking the glass out of her hands and finishing its contents.

Shrugging her shoulders, Aurora let a lighthearted smile curve her lips. "Pedantics."

He went back to watching her again, Aurora realised he quite liked to do that, watch her when he thought she wasn't looking, or maybe he just had a complete lack of care whether she knew or not, because he was just going to do it anyway. And, she suddenly remembered how he watched her in that yellow dress, the one that cinched at the waist and dipped at the front, a scandalous and risque choice in today's society but one Aurora had never been more satisfied in. Because when he was watching her spin in his brother's arms or stretched out in the front seat of his leather interior car, it felt like electricity sparking up nerves in a buzzing harmony linking the hair on the back of her neck to the curl of her toes gripping tightly to an imaginary force.

She often wondered if he knew of the effect he has on people, if it was a skill he had learnt to develop through his rowdy teenage years, or if it had just manifested one day, all at once, and he had the ability to turn even the most self-assured man or woman into a stuttering mess kneeling before his feet. Sometimes even Aurora would feel her knees wanting to buckle, thirsting for his power to take control and leave her mind blissfully empty for everything except for him. Just him. Always him. And she had never really felt that feeling before, not even with Henry and his dashing smile. Because she had loved Henry, loved him until it hurt, ached, punctured holes in her chest, made the breath leave her lungs, but Tommy-

"Did Polly ever tell you her name?" He interrupted her thoughts, making Aurora's brows pinch together in confusion, briefly wondering if she had missed something he'd said while she was lost in his potency. "The name of the one before France." He added, and the realisation hit her as hard as a hammer slamming down on her ribs. _'Told me that you loved her deeply, and she loved you just the same. Then she told me that you lost her'_

"No. She didn't." She replied with a shake of her head, all other questions losing value in the face of heartache. A heartache they shared.

"Greta." He said, though it looked like it pained him to do it, his tongue pressing to the roof of his teeth and seeming as if he was trying to suck it back in. Like he regretted releasing it out into the world and was forcing time to bend to his will and take back those few seconds until she no longer existed again. Because that is how it works, if you refuse to say things out loud, then it simply doesn't exist. "It was easier then. She loved me and I..." He trailed off, not allowing those words to pass his lips, not allowing those sentiments out loud. And Aurora really tried to imagine Tommy saying it, just so she could know he could, because she so desperately wanted him to. Wanted to know that he could love, even though she had heard he had. But hearing from the mouths of others felt so inconsequential compared to hearing it from him. Everything felt like nothing compared to him. "Now, it's all fucking-"

"I know." She cut him off, in a desperate attempt to not hear anymore, as she has shed enough tears and bled enough misery today alone to satisfy the devil's yearly quota on suffering and when Tommy spoke of pain, it just made everything worse. So, Aurora casted her eyes down onto her hands fidgeting in her lap, unable to watch him watch her anymore. "And now a part of that, is my doing."

She wasn't looking at him but she could still feel his stare narrowing down to something incredulous. "Do you think you've damned us?" He asked her but she didn't want to look up, scared to fall into the depths that his looks draws her into and allow him to convince her of the things she didn't want to believe. Though she wasn't given much of a choice when he abruptly leant forward in his chair and held onto her chin with his thumb and the crook of his index finger moving her face upwards for her. "Us Shelby's were never set for rainbows and fucking sunshine Aurora. You've done nothing that wasn't gonna happen eventually."

His hand started to travel then, skimming her jaw and moving to rise up her cheek until she could feel his fingers tangling up in her golden hair and his thumb methodically brushing small strokes underneath her prominent cheekbone. It was all very hypnotic and so very tempting, that it even had her face tilting into his hand just that little bit that she hoped wasn't noticeable, but everything was noticeable to Tommy so it was quite pointless to try and hide it. "So you planned on taking on the whole country within one year?" She managed to say, proud of herself that her words were steady, and not breathy and jumbled like they had sounded in her head.

"I've been told I'm quite an ambitious man." And there it was, that glimmer. The wink of moonlight shining on the water, the shine of glass reflecting the sun, the galaxies and the stars and everything and anything shiny and bold, sparking fires in his eyes that washed the world in blue gasoline. It made you think that anything was possible, as long as you were with him. And oh, how Aurora wished to never not know what that feels like. To always have that drug pumping through her veins until it ultimately torched her soul and left her lifeless.

"There's a fine line between ambition and foolishness."

Tutting his head off to the side, Tommy gave her a plain view of his smile. One not hidden behind any walls, or one she needed to search for. "I've never much cared for lines."

Then, she was smiling with him, teeth digging into her bottom lip as she fought to keep it from full bloom. "Says the illegal bookmaker."

"Haven't you heard? We've a legitimate betting license."

Aurora must have forgotten that there existed others living in the same world as theirs, as her laughter escaped her lips like the church bells chiming on a soft spring day, her head momentarily ducking down while her hand moved to catch the giggles from tumbling out any louder. His hand that rested on her cheek and in her hair, moving down to the slope of her neck, not losing contact with her skin despite there being no reason for it to be there any longer. "Oh, do forgive me. I would never hope to sully your respectable name." She teased, moving her head to look at him once again, because it was just too much of a waste not to.

He must have liked the sound of her laugh, because he was still smiling, granted smaller than how a less tortured person may have been smiling but still smiling nonetheless. "Respectable eh?"

But, just like that, the light that was snuffing out the gloom vanished into a measly pile of dust, much like Tommy's forgotten cigarette burning ink splats into the weathered wood of the table. Aurora's smile dropping quicker than Tommy had time to comprehend, it managing to cause his hand to slip away from her body completely, until it left her feeling utterly exposed to the ice claws ripping at her exposed flesh without the protection of his blazing touch.

"You shouldn't say it like that." She muttered, a barren sort of glaze building up over her eyes as she stared back at him and his rising confusion. "Like it's something you want. Respectability is a meaningless word, thought of by some man, who wanted to feel more important and so paraded his wealth around, until he had garnered enough envy that the walls of his Manor turned green." Her voice tasting like acid, and sounding just the same. "It's nothing. You can't touch it, feel it, taste it. And they tell you that you can earn it, but they're lying. You can't. They're just puppeting your emotions around on strings because they're bored and you're their new favourite toy." She saw the fire in his eyes taper to a simmering nothingness, hating herself for being its cause, but continued to lecture him anyway, because he needed to know. Needed to understand that the ivory towers and glass ceilings were built centuries ago and there laid no more land to stack any more bricks. "You can gain power, you can grab at fear but no one can work their way to respectability, no matter what they say. Don't dedicate your life to a fool's errand Tommy, it will only lead to more sleepless nights."

Aurora wasn't quite sure why she said that, why she insisted on turning moments sour when they could have been sweet. Maybe she just has too much salt left in the wounds, that she now couldn't possibly live without the pain, survive without the constant throbbing settled underneath her skin, even though she tried to. Even though she wanted to. So despite, stopping Tommy's melancholy, she persisted in her own. Letting it blanket the room in a disparity so thick that not even razors could cut it.

However Aurora learnt that her and Tommy are much the same. They can't live without the pain. 

"Did you ever think of another life?" He drawled out, his voice muddled with whiskey and deprived sleep, but still managing to sound powerful and precise all the same, like the sad notes of a cello being plucked. "One without all the noise?"

Tracing her fingers around the rim of the empty glass, Aurora turned away from looking at Tommy, not wanting to see his face while she said _his_ name. "When I was with Henry. He liked to dream a lot." She replied, a soft painted smile shining for a split moment before she was reminded of his scream. That god awful screech that sounded from the depths of a banshee's piercing cry, as a knife had sliced the flesh down his cheek and his blood had ran down the floors to mingle with that of his family's on the Church's holy grounds. "But tragedy leaves little hope to the scarred." Her throat drying out and weeping for another lick of booze to brush it all away, but alas, all that there was left with empty glasses and empty bottles. Everything empty.

"It wasn't your fault." Tommy said and Aurora looked up to him and wanted to agree. Why? Why the fuck, did she want to agree with him? It had been years since that godforsaken day and she had spent every single one of them, trapped under self loathing and a crippling sense of unbearable guilt. No argument or reasoning she would come up with could ever deviate the blame that she held firmly on her shoulders, but Tommy Shelby says four little words and she was ready to forget it all and nod her head along with a ' _Yes, you're probably right_.'

"How do you do that?" She asked him, and this time she truly sounded breathless. Her eyes scrutinising his entire figure like it might hold the answer. The secret to his madness, or better yet, the secret to hers. "Make words sound more than they are. Make one single glance feel like..." Her mind searching searching searching, for one word, any word, that would be enough for him, but there were none. No word in the extensive range of the English language seemed to be enough for Thomas Shelby. And it was so ridiculously maddening, she was sure she might have well have been gaping like a goldfish. "I can't even describe it. You're indescribable." She stammered with a shaky sigh.

Tommy seemed to be at a loss of words himself, as shocking as that may be, so he just responded with a, "I don't know."

"Yes you do." Aurora argued back with a fire too blazing for the dwindling hours of this late night, though perhaps it was early morning by now. The room did feel considerably brighter than it was before, but then again perhaps that had nothing to do with the rising sun and had everything to do with this ungodly pair. "There's very few things in this world that you don't know, Tommy." Her hand inching forward until her fingers were lightly tracing the outline of Tommy's resting on the table. "You even know me now." She said as he twitched and fidgeted under her touch.

"Do I?" He retorted with a quirk of a single brow, no longer staring at her face anymore, but rather at their hands dancing around each other, turning his palm over slowly. Aurora's gaze fixed on the same thing, watching in a daze as they carefully slotted into place with each other, like she truly wasn't in charge of her actions but rather a spectator watching from afar.

"Do you think you don't?" She challenged, her dark lashes fluttering slightly as he closed their hands in a controlled pressured fist, his thumb running over the ridges of her knuckles in slow swipes, that sent her heart pounding harder against her chest than she supposed was normal.

She felt his eyes settle on her face once again, and like a moth drawn to the flame, Aurora followed, locked onto that stare that held the colours of a bruise flowering across the skin in vibrantly fatal shades. A deadly concoction that shouldn't have excited her, but it did. "I think that I'll never know you. Not fully. Not unless you let me." Tommy murmured and Aurora was unsure whether to trust her hearing any longer, for if it were true, and she hadn't fallen deaf in one ear, then he was actually giving her... _power_. Power over him. Power to restrict him from her, if she so chooses. And Aurora quickly realised that nothing more surprising could ever come out of Tommy's mouth again.

Never surprising, always caught off guard. What a bunch of lies.

"Since when do you ask for permission?" She raised, because she genuinely wanted to know. It all being very plausible and highly likely that this is the first time anything close to a request, instead of a demand, an order, a fucking command, had ever left Thomas Shelby's lips. And if it was being directed towards her, than she bloody well deserved to know about it. "You take what you want. And you told me yourself, you want a great many things."

"And if I said that that's what I want?" He claimed, before Aurora barely had the time to finish. "To know you."

And she waited. Blinked. Breathed...and said.

"Then fuck permission, and take it."  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi lovelies, so I've absolutely adored all of your guy's support on my recent chapters, and I hope that you are all still enjoying how these updates are going. And yeah, your comments are really my only form of motivation at this point so please keep it going so I don't go and scream into my pillow later tonight.


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